Stopgap Measures
by Mylinae
Summary: Even home is fraught with problems, and the Captain finds she must deal head on with fate . . . even if it means opening not-so-old wounds. [finally finished] [REVIEW!!!!!]
1. Chapter One

Stopgap Measures

  
  


Disclaimer: Well, honestly. Would anyone believe I came up with ALL this on my own?

  
  


_Chapter One_

  
  


The endless party of last year. The Federation had desperately needed something to celebrate about, it seemed. For a moment they forgot about the myriad troubles that had plagued them for the near-decade that Voyager had been lost. Cardassians and the Dominion War, the Borg . . . perhaps that was the most celebrated achievement. The implosion of the Borg Collective and its subsequent limping retreat back into the far depths of space.

The temporal paradoxes gave her headaches to think about. The effects could have been erased, could have continued. Now that she was home -home earlier compared to some things- did the Admiral, such as she was, still exist? It seemed at least the pathogen had survived. Was that older version of herself still with them, then? 

Kathryn shook her head, dispelling some of her musings. She glanced at her coffee mug. The beverage was cold. She still gloried in real coffee . . . she had practically lived off of it ever since hitting terra firma, much to the dismay of some. To her own dismay the ever insistent archivists at Starfleet Communications and Academy alike had sent up another kilometre-high pile of padds for her perusal. Copies of her official logs. She still stood firm on opening her personal logs. They could muck through all that when she was dead, no sooner.

"Clarify!" the hasty missives demanded, indicating various things in the logs. They had the most trouble with the later log entries, since she had included many unclear points. Aboard the ship, everything was understood as a matter of course. Voyager wasn't termed a family without reason. Every family has its nuances.

Its secrets.

Voyager was no different, and in some cases she didn't want to clarify for the persnickety historians, librarians _et_ _al_ . . . but if she didn't, they'd speculate, and historical accounts would go out the window like they always did, into fantasy. It pained her to think of those years as "history" to be written about, analysed, rehashed, _taught_ . . . God, taught. She was a subject in Starfleet history already, and she'd only been back a year.

And in a year, Starfleet had taken Voyager out of duty and turned it into a museum as the Admiral had described. For a while, she'd wondered if they were even going to let them take their personal effects of the ship . . . but she had to admit that the ready room looked pretty bare now.

That little plan had been enacted but the ever-busy Admiral Paris, who was nearly as aggravating as the archivists when it came to her logs. His no-longer-so-errant son had taken his chances when they landed and was now most officially AWOL . . . along with his wife and their year-old daughter. She knew exactly where he was and why he was hiding. Admiral Paris would grill him to death over his apparent miraculous reform if she ever let on. Miraculous? Wasn't seven years quite enough time, honestly? Why couldn't they leave it all alone? Like anyone _wanted_ to talk about half the things that went on . . . 

Poor Seven had been practically interned at Starfleet Medical for her first three months on Earth until they all raised enough of a racket about it to get the overeager scientists to lay off. The Doctor had proved quite resourceful and useful in that capacity. He had been had his most abrasive the whole time, wrangling at the Starfleet doctors with endless holographic energy. Kathryn had been on damage control . . . trying to keep Chakotay from falling apart.

She squinted her eyes shut. Even "home" was fraught with problems. Thankfully she could finally get down to work again, now that most of the furor had died down. Even if so far she was still stuck on desk duty. Captains at desks, what a ludicrous thing. That was why she had turned down her promotion. She was not going to be stuck here for the rest of her career. She needed to be back in space, preferably in a new ship with as much of her crew as she could wheedle into coming along with her.

She smiled slightly, picking up a padd from the desk and reading it. She immediately put it back down. One week after New Earth. Would they not _leave that alone?_ She didn't want to "clarify" every little thing for _their_ benefit.

She was feeling contrary. Too many years of being the first in command, the only censorious Starfleet voice within thousands of light-years. As Tom had once observed "the Undisputed Queen of the Delta Quadrant Fleet." Of course that was pure nonsense in itself, but the initial thought applied. Of course, Chakotay had had his two cents put in at regular intervals, usually when she wasn't looking.

The door to her small office swished open, and she looked up reflexively. Old habits died very hard, and she half expected to see Chakotay enter, perhaps Tuvok had the Vulcan decided she needed a little logic drummed into her. But this was not her ready room, and the person who entered was hardly Chakotay. Instead it was one Lieutenant -Junior Grade- Erin Lange, a pretty woman of about twenty-five whose brilliant green eyes were perhaps larger than even Seven's. She served as her secretary, and had the uncannily familiar notion that "Captain Kathryn" as she called her superior fondly, was in need of some very serious looking-after. If their looks and ages weren't so in contrast, she might have likened the young Lieutenant to one overprotective Commander in her acquaintance. 

"Erin!" Kathryn said, smiling widely for the other woman's benefit. Then she took a good long look at her. The younger woman's face was quite downcast, and she had a small padd in her hand. She stopped in front of the desk hand held the note out.

"A VO message from Commander Chakotay," she said quietly, turning to leave.

Bad news. Bad news! Erin never left unless she knew it wasn't something she should be around for. Chakotay's note . . . what would . . . ? 

God in heaven . . . the baby. . . .

She shot out of her chair and out of the office, running full tilt down the long hall.

***

  
  


The Doctor stood against the wall watching his former Captain pacing up and down like a caged animal, muttering imprecations under her breath about the very gall of the Starfleet doctors to keep them hanging to dry out in the waiting area.

He shared many of her sentiments. He was a _doctor_! And as fit a one as any of the others in that small room. They were probably using _his_ procedures, though stopping at intervals and wasting precious time to ooh and ahh over Borg physiological components. Hadn't they scanned and poked and prodded her enough already? His opinion of Starfleet Medical had been severely brought down in recent times.

Even after all this time it was still not beyond him to feel a twist of artificial jealousy at the fact that _Chakotay_ was allowed into the impromptu surgical area. But he didn't have to be in there to know what had happened. He had been there the first time, after all, and had berated Chakotay soundly about not consulting with at least _some_ description of doctor before . . .

Who cared about that? What mattered right now was that those inept doctors in there didn't try their fancied-up version of a D&C and kill her in the process. Chakotay knew better than to let them do that. 

Oh, he'd warned her! Begged her to give it up for her own good! But no, Seven of Nine was intent on children. At first it had seemed to go rather well, until certain systems in her body took exception to a "foreign" life sign in her body. Damn the Borg anyhow! Damn them for doing such a complete job on her that even the much vaunted new Mach 7 Emergency Medical Holograms -for all their bells and whistles- could not figure out a way to fully disengage everything. _He_ had done the best he could . . . even wrecking the motor functions of her right hand in the process . . . and yet she still trusted him to free her of the Borg. It was impossible, but she refused to realize that. 

He ground his holographic teeth. Fallacy! Total fallacy! She had nearly bled to death the first time, wasn't it enough? Her immune system was pitifully underdeveloped. She had been raised from a young age in the sterile environment of a ship, assimilated -and the Borg didn't catch bugs- and then freed . . . to live on another sterile ship. And that ship was sterile because _he_ had insisted it be that way. The Borg, for all their perfection, had never deigned to learn how to reinforce Human immune responses. Her first months on Earth had been one influenza attack after another, and she was a pale shadow of what she had once been.

It almost made his databanks twist in grief. Damn adaptive programming as well.

She never sang anymore.

There was the sound of running feet and an abrupt skidding sound as Harry Kim -now Lieutenant Kim- almost slid past the door in his haste. He grasped at the doorframe and steadied himself, looking with desperate eyes at the pacing Captain.

"Is she all right? When did they get here?" he demanded.

The Captain was not feeling responsive, and kept pacing.

"Four hours," the Doctor replied quietly. "And we haven't heard a thing."

"Not a damned thing," the Captain added in a dark tone. It was exact tone of voice that had made many an alien reconsider the probability of his continued good health, and wonder if his appendages were really that firmly attached. In all honestly, Kathryn Janeway could exude more implied violence in one sentence than an entire platoon of armed Klingon warriors, when she was angry. She would put the fear of God into those doctors when they emerged.

He was unaccountably proud of his Captain for that.

Harry passed a hand through his dark hair. "Four hours," he breathed. "Is the-?"

The Doctor shook his head, belaying the question. "The infant did not survive. Even with the treatments, her body rejected it as totally as the first. I doubt she'll be able to even attempt another pregnancy."

In a rare moment, Harry swore, eyes aggrieved as he looked from the Captain to the Doctor. "Oh . . . poor Seven. Poor Chakotay! Where is he?"

"In there," the Captain said, gesturing to the doors across the hall.

"She's right there?"

"Unfortunately," the Doctor murmured, eyes wandering to the austere gray doors. Standard Starfleet decor, but more desolate than they had ever seemed before.

Harry fairly collapsed into a chair, rubbing his hands over his face as if trying to dispel what he knew. What Voyager crew members knew of Seven's troubles had been collectively holding their breath for a long while now. Did she know how much these people loved her? How much _he_ did? This would be an unprecedented blow to young Naomi Wildman, who had remained in close contact with Seven. It would be a blow to everyone. It was.

"Why aren't you in there, Doctor?" Harry asked.

"They won't let me."

The young man's grieving features contorted into anger. "That's idiocy! You know more about treating her than any of them could even hope to! Arrogant-"

The Captain belayed him with a sharp gesture, eyes turned to the doorway. There stood Chakotay, looking at the three of them with almost soulless eyes. The Doctor heard the Captain let out a sob as her angry resolve visibly shattered.

The dread of his news hung in the air tangibly. 

  
  


_To be continued_

***


	2. Chapter Two

Disclaimer: Not mine.

Note: Not that I'm as diehard a J/Cer as some, but I'd like to warn everyone that this is not entirely a C/7 fic. And not that C/7 isn't a huge major component either! I'm doing some of it from Janeway's POV for a reason. . . .

  
  


_Chapter Two_

  
  


"Look at me, Chakotay, please," she implored, trying to make him raise his brown eyes to her face.

They were in the hospital room, Seven unconscious and pale as death on the bed, her blonde hair spilling across the pillow in ripples. It pained Kathryn to look at her like that, though never on the same level as it hurt Chakotay. Seven was still beautiful, but a wan reflexion of her former self. Even what was left of her ocular implant seemed lacklustre.

The Captain had since chased everyone else from the room with meaningful glares and now sat in the chair across from Chakotay. He had stood in the doorway of the waiting area for several moments at first, saying nothing, and then had merely turned away again. Retreating. She clasped his nerveless hands in his, hoping to coax some reaction from him. Even tears were preferable to his dejected silence as he gazed at the floor.

It was the look in his eyes that truly made her want to cry . . . or maybe deal damage to something. His eyes were -had been- always so expressive, ready to convey all the small things he did not or would not voice. He could put whole conversations in those eyes, and she knew it better than anyone.

The silent words had always been directed at her. Even Seven didn't know the full of it.

But now those glorious eyes were downcast, expressing nothing but pure loss. Her heart ached for him. For both of them. The agony in the room was nearly palpable.

"Please, Chakotay," she begged. "Say something. Look at me. Whatever. I don't care. Tell me to go if you want . . . just-just _something_, please."

He lifted his head, his empty eyes coming to rest on her face. Even then he seemed to take in her image very carefully, as if she was something to be wary of. "It's my fault, Kathryn," he said flatly.

She wanted to deny that. She wanted to rail at him . . . scream at the top of her lungs that it was entirely out of his hands . . . which it was, but that was not what he wanted to hear from her. She knew that. She hadn't spent seven years almost constantly living within three metres of him to come out of it having learned nothing. So she said nothing of the sort, and shook her head slightly.

"She knew the risks."

He made a face, almost sneered at her. It wasn't a becoming expression. "Yes, she did. And so did I, for that matter. I should have listened to the Doctor. . . ."

"There was a chance she would come out of it . . . both of them would come out of it fine. There was _always_ that chance. You knew that. You took it-"

"And _look_ at her, Kathryn!" he exclaimed, almost leaping to his feet. "_That's_ what chance has done for us!" 

She didn't care that his fury was directed at her. As long as he directed it somewhere. At least, she could keep him from retreating into himself . . . the same could not be said for Seven. When she woke up, she would go silent and keep silent, bottling it up like always. She even hid from Chakotay, _that_ Kathryn knew. Much like she herself had hidden.

Did hide.

"Yes, look at her!" she said fiercely. She wasn't going to back down from him. Not now. "She's alive, if pale, and still loves you even if she is unconscious. That's not what you wanted, not what any of us wanted, but count your blessings."

"Blessings?" he said incredulously. "Spirits, Kathryn, are your eyes closed? Ears plugged? You heard the Doctor. You heard all the doctors! She'll never fully recover from this and she'll never . . . be able . . ." He broke down then, anger joined by tears, which he needed.

She wept with him, crying the copious tears she had been holding in since first receiving his message. The worst of it was that she wept not so much for his wife or his dead child, but for him and his pain. Just him, like for a moment Seven meant nothing at all and it would be perfectly all right for her to just disappear, if such a thing would alleviate his suffering. Unworthy, heartless thoughts all. She hated that side of herself, but it was there, all the same.

They were like that for a few moments, not speaking, not even touching let alone embracing . . . just crying. He for fate, and she for him _and_ that wretched fate. Were they all doomed to this somehow? When one goal, one hope was reached, one person made happy, something like this inevitably happened to someone else . . . it seemed inescapable. She hated it, and it had started with her orders to hunt down this man and bring him to justice.

Was _this_ justice enough for them? Those spiteful powers that be . . . the ones that plagued her everywhere she went and plagued anyone and everyone she even remotely felt for? Even her mother, having lived to see her daughter home, was failing in her old age.

"She wanted children so badly, Kathryn," he breathed, voice ragged with emotion. "She couldn't even tell me how much it meant, but I could see it. I could _see_ it in her eyes. And now . . . and now what? Now nothing. She's going to die, Kathryn."

"_She_ _is_ _not_," she objected immediately and strenuously, rising from the chair. She placed a hand on his shoulder and forced him to look at her. "She is not going to die, Chakotay. She's sick, yes. She will probably be weak all her life from this, but she's far too stubborn to quit now. I'd like to think that I at least taught her that. And I know you'll take care of her. Taking care of people is your strong suit, _I_ know that."

"How do you know?" he demanded bitterly. "Obviously my strong suits don't lie in the areas you think they do."

"You're wrong."

"Why?"

"I'm alive, aren't I? I should honestly be dead a hundred times over, but I'm still here, aren't I? Because you -_you-_ chose to stick by me like the stubborn, angry warrior you named yourself. And she's still with us. Can't that be something?"

"It _is_ something . . . but the fact that she's alive shouldn't be in question."

"I agree, but that question is not your fault. Believe me, Chakotay. _Trust_ me. You trusted me up until now, what's to stop you this time?"

"I know you can be wrong, Kathryn. I'm not as gullible as some of them. You're Human too. You can be wrong."

"Damn right I'm Human. But if that gives me the capacity to be wrong -and it does- doesn't that mean that you can be wrong too? Chakotay? Chakotay! Where the hell are you going?"

He was out the door almost before she got the question out. She didn't follow him. She'd probably intruded far enough for now, and Chakotay coveted his solitude at times. Now was likely one of those. Sighing, she dragged the chair to the side of Seven's bed and lifted the pale, chilled hand into her own, frowning.

_Do you know how much he loves you?_ she thought towards the prone woman. Seven could not hear, but that didn't matter. _Do you know how much this is killing him? Of course you do. You're more perceptive than you let on. A fact which makes me nervous at times, because you cover it so well. You were always relentless, Seven, Annika . . . you never backed down even when the Queen was breathing down your neck. I like to think you learned from me. Why didn't I learn from you? Why couldn't I accomplish what you did, and stare it all in the face?_

She was slightly startled when Seven's hand stirred in hers. She knew the ex-drone was immersed in painkillers, somnolent ones at that. She couldn't wake up out of that. Not out of so much pain. Kathryn wiped her tears with her free hand, frowning. Seven was relentless within herself, but outwardly she would never own up to anything. She didn't need to be an empath or a psychologist to know that.

The problem was, Seven's closemouthed nature made it harder for everyone, especially Chakotay. His wife had more barriers in her than anyone Kathryn had ever met, including herself. Seven didn't hide behind protocol, she hid behind Seven. They were oddly congruent. Kathryn Janeway hid behind The Captain, Annika behind Seven of Nine. Yet the ex-drone had accomplished many things that she had not.

Her hand stirred again, and this time one blue eye cracked open, surveying her surroundings with quiet detachment, even while she visibly fought with the sedatives in her system. Seven sighed. "Where's-" she began in a thin voice.

"Shh! Go back to sleep. He just had to get out of here for a while. I think I may have drove him to it. I'm sorry."

Seven turned her head and looked at her solemnly. Kathryn felt her tighten her fingers. "Captain . . . no," she managed. She knew the small "no" was not meant for her. It was meant for what Seven knew was true when she realized where she was. "No . . ."

Tears came anew. "Oh, Seven, Seven, I'm so sorry . . . so sorry . . ." Kathryn said brokenly, nearly choking on the words. She couldn't manage a coherent sentence. For the second time she had ever witnessed, the other woman's brilliant blue eye filled.

"Where is the Doctor?" Seven asked, blurred eyes searching the austere room.

"He left. I chased him out too. I can get him for you. I can get Chakotay . . ."

"No," Seven said rather emphatically. "I don't . . ."

"You don't what?"

Seven squeezed her eyes shut. Tears escaped. "Want to see . . . empty eyes, Captain. You know."

She did. So Seven saw. Seven would. She was perceptive, always observing every small detail. That was a mixed blessing also, the woman's intelligence. She probably already knew what had happened. All of it. Too astute for her own good, at times.

It was a cowardly thought on her part, but if Seven knew, it was easier than having to tell her. _Coward, Kathryn Janeway_.

"I know," Seven murmured, echoing the thoughts of her former Captain. "I still have auditory implants. I heard them all . . ."

"I'm sorry, Seven."

"I know."

_Don't we know, Annika Hansen? All three of us. We know._

***

  
  


Leave it to Kathryn to bring up the "angry warrior." She would, merciless woman. She knew every possible way to get to him, so swing him to her side. He was not interested. Not now. Yet like almost every time before, she had managed to instill some blind hope in him, that things would turn out.

Kathryn Janeway operated like she had good luck on her side. He knew better. Chakotay knew her well enough to know that things rarely turned out the way Captain Kathryn Janeway wanted them to. Of course by and large she got by, they all did, all had in the end. But now what? The Admiral's revelation ringing true, in some fashion?

He hadn't got any farther than the hallway outside the room, loath to be too far away in case something happened. Something invariably did. He had sat on the floor, finding he really wasn't up to standing. He ignored the doleful looks he received from the ever-growing group in the waiting area across from him. The Doctor, Harry, Naomi and Sam Wildman even Tuvok . . . everyone but the face he wanted to see. Damn Paris for carting B'Elanna off so quickly. He'd barely said his goodbyes, not even to his goddaughter. B'Elanna and Tom had some strange compulsion to hold on to all things Voyager, even naming their baby daughter K'Athra, the namesake obvious to anyone who hadn't been hiding under a rock for the last year.

B'Elanna would try the same tactics as Kathryn, only with considerably more swearing laced throughout. She often seemed to favour verbal abuse as comfort sometimes. He thought vaguely that maybe that was what he needed, instead of Kathryn's entreaties.

What he _needed_ was obvious. He needed a wife whose immune faculties hadn't been demolished by years of what was comparable to physical abuse, he needed his children . . . two perfect boys who had never seen a second in daylight, two boys lost. Somewhere behind his torture he craved something, but he knew not what.

What had happened to the peace he had known? Voyager was an unlikely haven, but there it was. Those had been the best years of his life . . . and _why?_ What had it given him? What was it he'd lost somewhere? It was not the ship itself, it was something . . . intangible . . .

The door cracked open, and Kathryn stuck her head out, auburn hair falling about her face. She looked mildly surprised to see him right beside the door. She looked down at him with serious eyes.

"She's awake."

He nearly fell over himself in his haste to rise, but rise he did, without incident and he nearly bowled the much slighter form of Kathryn over. He barely remembered moving, but he was suddenly at the other side of the bed, gripping Seven's hand in his. In better times, her strength had been comparable to his own, but her grip was weak, appallingly so.

"We should have listened to the Doctor," she said, some of the old, terse manner resurfacing.

_Oh no, not now! Not now, Seven! Don't go Borg on me! I _need_ you!_

"We should have," he agreed. "But that doesn't matter right now. Seven . . . you know that we'll never be able to try again. You know that."

She nodded, solemnly, expressionlessly.

_Don't retreat on me! Seven! Annika!_

__"That is . . . to be expected. I should not have attempted this a second time."

_Seven, I asked you! Don't turn cold on me! Not again! Don't leave me alone with this!_

__He barely noticed when Kathryn slipped out, a terrible kind of understanding in her expression and she closed the door gently. 

Kathryn had left the room . . . but she had not left him. That he knew. 

  
  


_To be continued._

***


	3. Chapter Three

Disclaimer: Paramount, Paramount, Paramount!

  
  


_Chapter Three_

  
  


"You mean to tell me, oh King of All Things Twentieth Century American, that your family isn't even _from_ America?" B'Elanna demanded incredulously. "And here I was wondering how you'd ever managed to find out about this place." 

Tom looked slightly affronted from where he sat, eyeing her suspiciously. "Well _I_ was born in California, but no, the greater part of my family wasn't American. And why does it matter? They were certainly_ North_ American. Norther American than the Americans. Geography doesn't matter. History's history."

"So how _did_ you find out about this place?" she asked. "I didn't think there was any place on Earth left that was so isolated. Not that I don't like it. The lake's lovely." 

"Never doubt the deterrence of a winter spent in the Precambrian Shield," he said piously. "I knew this place because my father used to drag me up here to go fishing all the time."

"Fishing?"

"Yes, fishing. I hated it. That, and I understand I've got some very removed cousins around here." 

"The wonders never cease."

"Thank you."

"So _is_ there a difference, may I ask, my displaced Canuck?"

He made a face at her for the moniker. That was probably the most annoying national nickname ever invented. "Chesterfields."

"What?"

"Exactly."

She rolled her eyes at him and continued her attempts at stuffing their active one-year-old into a jacket, with the intent of taking her for a walk. Their daughter was protesting the intrusion at the top of her considerable lungs. She had always had her mother's capacity for extended hollering, only the baby didn't yell about warp cores. At least not yet. 

K'Athra rolled her eyes towards him, beseeching. She didn't have much of a grasp on language yet, but her voice was quite penetrating at times. "Daaaa!" she squealed. "Daaa!" That was her version of "save me from my maniacal mother," but he was no help in that department. Her maniacal mother was his maniacal wife.

"Sorry, kid, can't help you or she'll get me too."

"Daaaa! Maa!" and off she went into her regular babble, trying to tug away. She was not yet a master of running either, and was never going to escape no mater how hard she tried.

Tom felt great sympathy for his daughter, but bided his time. K'Athra would get back at her mother yet, once some of her Klingon traits set in, and she got her legs under her. Wouldn't B'Elanna have a high old time chasing her around? He winced. Like as not, he would be drafted into chasing duty.

One thing that this area _didn't_ have going for it was the shuttle-craft-sized mosquitoes that in warmer months never left off. How had he forgotten the mosquitoes? Or the hummingbirds that buzzed by one's head at regular intervals and scared the hell out of him . . . mostly because they sounded like big mosquitoes.

The area was developed, per se, but there wasn't a transporter hub for fifty kilometres in any direction. They did have neighbours, but no one really cared about why they were there . . . if they'd noticed his half-Klingon wife and quarter-Klingon daughter at all. It was bloody hard to miss seeing B'Elanna, so he opted for the conclusion that no one cared to intrude. He liked that about the people here, always had. They never asked stupid questions . . . nor did the myriad retired Starfleet personnel in the area care to say anything to that organization. He didn't want to deal with his father, not yet. Not until he was sure K'Athra was big enough to give him a hard time too. He grinned at the thought.

The house they had acquired was not large, almost a cottage, but it was well suited to him. B'Elanna didn't seem to care, as long as she had a replicator and a computer to mess around on. That they did. They had a vidphone, as well, but only a choice few knew the number.

The only thing he really missed was flying. There was no way he could get clearance for a craft without having his name plastered all over the application files that the Federation loved so dearly.

The phone bleeped insistently, and B'Elanna abandoned the jacket idea in favour of punching a finger at the small console. There appeared the somewhat drained visage of Kathryn Janeway. Tom grimaced eloquently, knowing her news. She only got that look at certain times.

B'Elanna was also aware, and sank with a thump into the chair in front of the phone console, rubbing a hand over her forehead. "Again?" she said, anger creeping into her voice.

The Captain nodded. _"Yes. Sorry I didn't call sooner. I've been . . . occupied."_

__"I can imagine. How is he? How is she?"

_"Like the first time, only worse. This did it in for her. She had to have a hysterectomy."_

__"They still do that?"

_"Yes. B'Elanna, I know it's probably difficult, but you should come down. Just you. I doubt Chakotay could handle seeing K'Athra right now, and I know Tom wouldn't want to be down here . . . Not that I'm saying I think you don't care, Tom." _The image of the Captain glanced apologetically in his direction.

Chakotay and Seven. 

Somehow, that had never seemed right to him. The names, said in congruence, gave him a bad feeling. Not that he didn't wish them the best -God knew they deserved _some_ sort of respite by now- but yet, it had never seemed right. The reason for that inkling was staring at them wanly through a comm line. 

Even now Tom wasn't sure about the Captain. Upon first meeting her, he had been struck by the pure presence she possessed. In spite of her small stature, she always seemed to dominate any room she walked into. Somehow she managed to add two feet of height and a hundred years' worth of knowledge to herself by simply moving her hand a certain way, or glaring just so. It had always discomfited him, that presence behind him on the bridge. It wasn't a benign thing, not all the time.

"I'll come," B'Elanna said emphatically, loyal to both her captains until the bitter end. She was like that. She held grudges and loyalties forever. It was an aspect of her he admired. Somehow she affected that Klingon honour so well, but without affecting that ever-so-much-holier-than-thou attitude that sometimes went with it. She was just B'Elanna.

_"Thank you, B'Elanna. It will mean a lot to him."_

__"I know. No problem. Goodbye, Kathryn. I'll see you in a couple hours."

_"Goodbye."_

B'Elanna switched the console off, rising from her chair muttering to herself and running a hand through her hair. She looked at him, expression somehow pained and angry and something else all at once. "You'll stay with, K'Ath, right?"

"Of course, but B'Elanna, how will I . . . I know she eats cereal, but I'm not exactly equipped for the other part."

She shrugged, off in her own little world. "Replicate something," she said, heading slowly towards the bedroom to pack.

***

  
  


They sat there, both red eyed, both calmer, but outwardly showing everything she felt . . . what she stomped down mercilessly. She . . . did not . . . want . . . to _feel._ Once again -one more time of many over the years- she wished to sink herself into automatic, mechanical oblivion. She wanted someone to tell her what to do.

She wanted to be alone; she wanted company. Grief liked company, she had noticed. Towering rage did not, and she had both roiling under her forcibly blank mind. She didn't want to think, she wanted to scream.

The Captain and the Commander. Kathryn and Chakotay. They sat there, looking unaccountably hurt by her resolute silence. She didn't care. Irrelevant.

Not irrelevant. Painful. His eyes were no longer so empty, the Captain had said something to him, but what was there was only mildly less awful. She had caused this. This was what she got for throwing caution and logic to the wind in favour of some base, trivial Human need for procreation. Two potential lives lost, nearly her own as well, and what was left of Chakotay's battered soul out the window. Who was she to toy with such things like that, the ignorant pedant she was? She was the irrelevant one, and in her struggle for purpose she had hurt them.

Hurt the Captain in some basic way. The Captain. Saviour, mentor, surrogate mother . . .

Rival.

Hurt the Captain, because she had hurt Chakotay. Reckless, Seven of Nine. You are reckless, weak even before you weakened yourself physically. She should have stuck with her would-be keepers. The Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix Zero One had killed children also, under the influence of a basic, thoughtless purpose. Was Seven of Nine, Annika Hansen the Human, so very different from that? She had become what she had escaped and ultimately come to loathe.

She knew she had left everyone alone now, but the cold part of her didn't care. She was alone, wasn't she? Chakotay tried, but he didn't understand all of it. Alone, more so than she had ever been. It was not entirely based in the Borg, but certainly some of it was. She had harboured some sort of seething resentment her whole life. For what? Voyager, the Borg, her parents, Axom, the Queen . . . the Captain. She ultimately resented the Captain even as she considered the other woman her first real friend in the Universe. She had that low hatred for everyone who intruded on her, especially and poignantly that of the Collective. But not Chakotay. His intrusion was the considerate kind, even when she did not fully want _it_ either.

Did he know that? And if he did, would he . . . ? 

There were always two sides to everything. Seven and Annika warred.

She needed someone to tell her what to do.

The obvious candidate for that was silent, having apparently decided that her voice would be an intrusion on the aching silence in the room. So the Captain merely added her own to it, and gazed on, frowning pensively at nothing. She was thinking, hard.

There was a knock at the door, and the Captain rose immediately and cracked it open as quietly as she could, looking outside. Some low words were exchanged and she turned her face back in, looking at Chakotay.

"B'Elanna's here," she murmured.

That was the first time Seven had seen his expression improve since she had awoken. It only improved slightly. Yes, B'Elanna. They were close. She would help him. At least he was not alone, like she was. He left to room almost reluctantly though, his gaze lingering on her until the Captain shut the door.

Seven blinked in slight surprise as the Captain began to pace beside the bed, frowning that much deeper and glancing at her periodically . . . until she stopped, heaving a great sigh.

"Seven, I know you're not in the mood for talking, but I have been thinking about something. This is important. I need you to listen to me."

Important things in the space of a few hours. Typical.

"You don't need to tell me what you think until you want to, but I thought I should throw this by you first, because Chakotay won't like it unless you do. All right? Will you listen?"

The Captain. She nodded wordlessly. The Captain had an idea. Something to be done. Function. Purpose. Goal? The obvious candidate for direction had come through, and some of Seven's lingering resentment dispelled.

  
  


_To be continued._

***


	4. Chapter Four

Disclaimer: I'm not making money on this.

  
  


_Chapter Four_

_--_

_La vie est un défi, fais-lui face_

_La vie est une tragédie, prends-la à bras le corps_

_La vie est la vie, défends-la_

_ --Mother Teresa_

  
  


_L'amitié est un risque, prends-en soin_

_L'amitié est un honneur, reconnais-le_

_L'amitié est l'amitié, saisis-le_

_--Mylinae_

  
  


B'Elanna was angry. All of her boiled, not just the Klingon side. Who in _hell_ was dragging all this bad luck down on them? What was it about them that made them such likely targets for all the blights that the Universe came up with? Didn't Chakotay deserve a break? Didn't _Seven?_

She was not an avid fan of the former Astrometrics officer, but this was ridiculous. Fate had certainly crashed in on both of them numerous times. When was enough enough? She ground her teeth and held in those sentiments. Chakotay would not appreciate them right now.

Then again perhaps he would.

B'Elanna Torres wished for some of the almighty insight that Captain Janeway possessed. Not that the other woman said everything right either, but somehow she always got the mood right. Kathryn Janeway, that untouchable precedent.

Did Chakotay even know how high a pedestal he put that woman on? Obviously such realizations were intermittent, or he wouldn't be where he was. She wouldn't be where she was, would she? Seven was similarly placed far above such a mundane being as herself, but that was different.

"How are Tom and K'Athra?" he asked in a quiet voice as they walked together up the bare hall.

She was surprised at his choice of first subject, but accepted it gladly in favour of darker things. "Both fine. Tom was sorry he couldn't come, Chakotay. K'Ath's doing great. She's getting pretty active though. We have to watch her all the time."

He nodded, looking out the windows that faced the bright California day. It was at odds with the dire tone of the building, and the people contained therein. "That's good, B'Elanna. When is Tom going to stop hiding from his father?" he asked.

Chakotay knew why Tom wasn't around. She supposed it was her fault for expecting him to miss that little detail. She shrugged. "When the Admiral loses that bug up his ass. I don't know how that man ever ended up with a son like Tom. They're so dissimilar, and I only met Owen Paris once. We're happy where we are. You should come visit sometime. It'd be good for you."

He made a noncommittal noise. "Maybe. B'Elanna, what am I going to do?"

"About what?" she asked warily.

"About . . . everything," he said, letting out a defeated breath. "It's never going to be the same, is it? Nothing."

Why lie to him? "No, it won't, but that never stopped you. This is more than two people should honestly be asked to bear. I'm sorry, Chakotay, but I'm the last person who's going to know what to do. That's up to you . . . and Seven."

"I'm not going to leave her."

"Well, goddamn, Chakotay! If you even tried, we'd all kick your ass so hard our boots'd come out your mouth! I hope that was someone else's suggestion, because if you're saying that because _you_ considered it, you're going to get it."

He didn't reply to that immediately. He paused, looking out the window at the city sprawled beyond. "Maybe I need a good kick regardless."

She was tempted to agree. He was digging himself quite a hole already. And damn if she was going to let him give up. She'd kill him first. "Don't go getting off into that. She went and froze up again, didn't she?"

He nodded.

Damn her metal-plated hide! B'Elanna had_ known_ Seven would leave Chakotay out in limbo! She'd certainly done it before, and it took a lot out of him to get her to come back, even with judicious help from the Captain and the Doctor. She wondered at the fact that Chakotay _hadn't_ lost his resolve.

"Well, I can't say I'm surprised. Sorry, Chakotay. This has got to be tough on her. What're her recovery chances? What happened? Give me the list."

"She can't have children, her immune system is well-nigh gone, her right hand doesn't work, she had considerable stress on her heart for a while, and the Doctor thought that continued treatment with the drugs they put her on will give her aphasia after a while."

"What's that?"

"She won't be able to speak very well. Something about the vocal centres that doesn't work with some particular chemical."

"Damn. What're they going to do?"

"Make her regenerate for about four days at least."

"She won't like that."

"No, but it may repair a few things. She's hardly in any condition to put up a fight."

B'Elanna frowned, looking out the window as well. She sighed. Sighed again. "Well . . . damn! I'm sorry, Chakotay. Neither of you should have to deal with this. It's insane."

She'd never seen him so downcast, not even when they lost the first baby almost ten months before. At least then there had been more hope of recovery. Of course she would recover somewhat now, but she'd never be the same. A sad prospect in itself, even _if_ B'Elanna had never really liked the ex-drone. That was beside the point. She had hardly wished any ill on Seven. Certainly not this. Not this.

What if she had lost K'Athra? Would she have done as well as even Seven? Hybrid pregnancies were always tricky, even under the best circumstances. She knew for a fact that her reproductive system was so convoluted that it was a wonder it worked at all. The Doctor had said as much, and marvelled at her comparatively uneventful pregnancy. The possibility of "event" had always loomed though, hanging over her head. She shuddered. "What if" had not happened . . . at least not to her.

B'Elanna had doubted the wisdom of Seven having children from the beginning. Of course she'd tried her hand with their foundlings, but they had been the most adult children ever -an unfortunate by-product of Borg tampering, once again. How would that woman ever cope with say, a two-year-old? _Human_ two-year-old . . . that particular kind was said to be more troublesome than most. Of course, Chakotay would make a great father, but still. . . .

She was suddenly aware that she was crying. Yes, Chakotay would make a great father, but his chance had left before he could even question it. Why did things work out in these ways? The most deserving of people always getting the short end of the stick? Seven years away from home . . . fights, deaths, crashes, diseases, tears and then they'd finally made it back. And straight into a different version of the same thing. The fights were yet to come, she knew.

He would fight with the Captain. They fought with an intensity that boggled the mind sometimes, she'd seen it before. Somehow they invariably managed to come out of it friends, but somewhere along the way, one of them would say something hurtful, and everyone would walk on eggshells for a week until they made up.

He might fight with _her_, if the mood took him.

He'd never fight with Seven. 

But it appeared to fight had gone out of him, which was appalling. Chakotay giving up? That was as ludicrous a thought as Janeway taking an argument sitting down. More so. Chakotay hadn't been the same since stepping off Voyager, and no one really knew why. She doubted even he knew why, but he was missing something important.

She had this dreadful feeling that it ran deeper than any of this . . . that Seven, while loved dearly, was only filling some invisible hole. A stopgap measure to stem some terrible wound that he had acquired somewhere. But what? Before all this, he had lost nothing, and this had started far before the first baby or Seven's failing health. Everything was here that had been on Voyager, in a basic sense. What was gone that he had had there?

"We should go back," he said, looking down the hall.

She didn't have to say anything, she just followed him when he started back the way they had come.

***

  
  


He stared at her like she was completely and utterly crazy. Perhaps she was. Wasn't there just so much tied up in it? Her feelings ran in a hundred directions at once . . . but the proverbial cat was out of the bag. She'd have to chance it now . . . provided of course she was allowed to. 

It had elicited the first reaction from Seven in hours, which was something, and a positive reaction at that.

"Are you crazy, Captain?" the Doctor demanded, voicing his obvious thought. "I don't have to tell you how complicated such a thing would be. And the implications! It's- I just-"

She glared at him, not caring how he felt about it. His opinion didn't matter. He wasn't the only doctor in the Federation. "I know what you just! Do you have some aversion to helping them? Are you _jealous_, Doctor?"

She had hit a holographic nerve, she could tell. He ignored the pips on her collar and glared straight back. "That was uncalled for, and you know I wish no ill on anyone!" he hissed. She regretted her words immediately. "What I'm worried about is her health, his mental health, your health and the _relationships_ involved here! I don't have to be Human to see the conflict in this!"

"Oh, what about my health? I'm absolutely fine. You said yourself-"

"This is entirely different."

"Is it?"

"_Yes_."

"Seven's agreeable."

He rolled his eyes. "Of _course_ she is! But we don't know if Chakotay is, and you came up with this what, five minutes ago?"

"Six months ago," she stated severely, matching him glare for glare. "I will do this with or without your help, though I'd prefer that. You're as much part of this family as any of us."

"Well, I'm touched, but surrogate motherhood -the _real_ kind- is not something to undertake lightly. We're both outside of this, Captain, in the same way almost. How do you feel, exactly, about giving birth to another woman's children?"

She paused, collecting herself. "Fine."

"Who are you doing this for?" he demanded harshly, keeping his voice low. "Them or _him?_"

"Watch yourself, Doctor," she growled. Well? How did she feel? The Doctor was certainly covering all his bases, but his accompanying biases were well known. He wasn't going to agree to having any part in it unless she affirmed that Seven was also her driving factor. And wasn't she? Seven meant worlds to her. She never left a member of her crew, and Seven was _alone_, wasn't she? She never abandoned a member of her crew. 

"Honestly? Who _is_ better suited?" she asked. "I'm close to both of them, I _love_ both of them . . . hell, I even _live_ within five blocks of them! And I'm healthy enough to have babies well into my sixties and live for six decades after that, even though I'm hardly at either of those stages. _I'm_ safe, so what _are_ you worried about?"

"What do you think?" he asked, throwing up his hands in exasperation. "Besides, you don't even have the Commander's opinion, and I've got a feeling he won't like it any better than I do. It's confusing at best."

"Why?"

"Tell me you are not so obtuse, please."

"May I remind you whom you are speaking to?"

"Go ahead. It doesn't change anything."

He was right, it didn't. There were far to many emotions wrapped up in this, and emotional conflict was not her strong suit, as time had told. But one thing ringed quite clearly. She could do this for both of them. She could take their blasted fate and turn it on _its_ ear. Didn't Seven deserve to see the manifestation of that hope? That hope that had burned in the invalid woman's eyes the moment the offer had left her Captain's mouth?

Like as not, Chakotay would turn out to be the contrary element. He was unpredictable at times, when it came to such "confusing" matters. Especially when it involved her even more unpredictable self. And didn't she _owe_ him? He'd made it his work of seven years to stay glued to her side . . . wasn't it her turn to give him such consideration? The work of nine months was minuscule in comparison.

She would do this for him, if he would let her.

She experienced a small moment of surprise. Apparently "think of the devil" was a phrase that applied as well, for there he came around the corner, walking silently beside B'Elanna. It was good of her to come, but not a surprise given her almost fanatical loyalty to Chakotay. What would B'Elanna think? _There_ was a question. The fifth piece of the puzzle, if the Doctor was fourth.

"What was that all about?" B'Elanna asked as they approached. "You were raising quite a racket for a while."

"Is something wrong?" Chakotay asked in the same breath.

"Yes."

"No," came two clipped replies.

"Which is it?"

Kathryn cleared her throat.

***

  
  


Harry still sat in the waiting area. He'd been mildly surprised when the Captain had come tearing in, practically dragging the startled Doctor into the hall beyond. She had shut the door, and he could not hear them argue. As it was, he'd been doing a judicious amount of visual eavesdropping through the glassed walls of the waiting area. Whatever it was, they were having a good row over it. Her glares were as black as they had ever been.

Now Chakotay and B'Elanna had returned. He'd been surprised to see her, when she had first arrived, but he should have expected her. B'Elanna's expression was incredulous as the Captain talked, the Doctor looked highly dissatisfied with some turn of events and Chakotay . . . well Chakotay looked like someone had pole-axed him.

Harry fought to contain his interest. It wasn't his business unless someone chose to tell him what was going on at some point . . . yet he didn't turn back to the room. Everyone else in there with him -Sam and Naomi, Tuvok- were watching as well.

All four were surprised when the Captain was suddenly lost in Chakotay's arms.

They both cried, the strongest people he had ever known.

  
  


_To be continued_

***

  
  



	5. Chapter Five

Disclaimer: I'm just borrowing this. Paramount isn't using it anyhow.

  
  


_Chapter Five_

  
  


Chakotay had taken his mandatory Starfleet science courses like anyone else, but the conversation between the Doctor and Kathryn was a little over his head. Talks of gametes, zygotes, blastocysts and meiosis were more than somewhat beyond him, in the context which they spoke. He was too busy trying to collect his wits.

Kathryn. She was probably the most incomprehensible human being he had ever met in his life, and probably the most incomprehensible of any being. He knew it was in her nature to want to help, she presided over her Voyager family like some sage matriarch, the glaring mother hen. But this was beyond what he had expected.

_Kathryn_ offering to bear his and _Seven's_ children? That _one_ thought boggled the mind, let alone the subsequent ones. He wasn't an idiot. He knew why the Doctor objected, making dubious comments throughout the two days since his and Kathryn's dual breakdown in the corridor. He wasn't sure if he didn't agree, in some context.

Kathryn, that scheming woman, had of course told Seven first. The mere hope contained within the older woman's idea had even sent Seven willingly to the alcove that Starfleet Medical had installed for her. She trusted him to do whatever the Captain asked, and to make her hope manifest itself. Kathryn had known that her acceptance meant his.

Having had enough of their science, he had left the small laboratory to get some air in the corridor beyond. They had been speaking earnestly as he left about incomplete karyotypes and what that implied. He wasn't sure he wanted to know yet. He knew what a karyotype was, and incomplete did not sound good.

He wasn't interested in the genetics.

But Kathryn, the ever-avid scientist, wasn't going to let him get away without knowing such tiny details. The door behind him cracked open, and she came out. She gestured to him.

"Let's take a walk," she stated, not requesting, commanding.

Out of pure habit, he followed her up the hall.

She looked at him carefully out of the corner of her eye. "There is an unforseen problem," she said quietly.

He was tempted to ask what else was new.

"There is a secondary reason for Seven's failed pregnancies. Apparently over ninety percent of the ova in her body are incomplete. There was some fault in the meiosis, even before _she_ was born. There are and average of only eighteen chromosomes in each cell. There are supposed to be twenty-three."

He thought about that, grasping some of it. Genetic fault. "And what does that do?"

"It explains the strange karyotypes. Your children were genetically incomplete. Even without Seven's implant problems, the babies were never going to live, Chakotay."

He drew a shaking breath. Curse upon curses. So what did that mean? That even with outside help, Seven could still not have the children she craved so terribly? He passed a weary hand over his eyes. "So now what?"

She frowned pensively ahead. "There is an old procedure, developed a couple years after the turn of the millennium, that can correct faulty egg cells. It was outlawed during that period when everyone got paranoid about genetics. It was never picked up again. We aren't in the same boat, but the Doctor thinks he can adapt the procedure . . . provided the Medical Council clears it, which is iffy."

"What does it involve?"

"Grafting genetic material into the most complete cells we find . . . basically adding the genes she's missing. It would likely have to be my genetic material, since I'm the host mother."

"What's so wrong with that?"

She looked uncomfortable. "Well, Chakotay . . . it complicates things more than they already are. In the end . . . any children born from such gene therapy have three parents. To a lesser degree, the baby would be _my_ baby also. Two genetic mothers and . . . a father."

He had to force himself to keep walking. Yes, that was complicated. Three parents? In the _literal_ sense? What great confusion . . . What if this hypothetical child never showed any of Seven's characteristics? Quite a muddle, in the real sense. Native American genes, Irish, Scandinavian? 

"We will have to ask Seven about it, when she wakes up," Kathryn murmured almost apologetically. "I'm sorry, Chakotay . . . but it is something. Isn't it?"

"It is," he agreed slowly. "Are you even sure that _you_ will do it?"

She looked offended. "Of course I am. I'd like to think you know me better than that. I've made up my mind. I'm not going anywhere unless you do."

He almost laughed at her. Kathryn! What could you do with a woman like Kathryn Janeway? That was a question he had asked himself for years. What to do about Kathryn? To laugh at her, yell at her, say nothing . . . to love her as she never had him? To be Kathryn's friend, and to watch her come back in kind, eight years later. It was more than that, so much more. His feeling for her had yet not been named in any spoken language.

He felt a familiar pang of guilt. Seven, he loved to distraction . . . but not to the exclusion of all else. Wasn't that the way it should be? He had married her, promised to exclude all else, in roundabout terms.

Did he?

No. He was yet being trailed around in the wake of something he could not have, and could not control. Spirits save him from the day when he saw Kathryn Janeway controlled by anything.

"All right, Kathryn," he said.

"What?"

"I said all right. You get your way. You always do."

"Not always, Chakotay, or we'd be somewhere far different."

"You said this had to be cleared by the Medical Council?" he asked.

She nodded. "Yes, but the Doctor can do it. He can be very persuasive."

"The Doctor agreed?"

"I can be persuasive too."

He did laugh at her that time. He hadn't laughed in a long while.

She knew that too, and looked at him, a grin spreading across her face. "It's good to hear you laugh again, Chakotay. You have no idea."

"It's good to see you smile," he replied. "There hasn't been enough of that lately."

"I agree. I'm sorry you had to miss me telling Seven . . . she has a brilliant smile, as I'm sure you know."

His good mood crashed inward, and this time he did stop walking, staring at Kathryn with all the desolation he felt in his eyes. "She . . . smiled?"

The Captain's light expression crumbled as well. She began to cry again almost immediately, looking up at him with a desperate apology in her eyes and holding her hands in the air as if she was going to take his face in her hands. "Oh, Chakotay, I shouldn't have said anything . . . I'm so sorry." 

He took the proffered embrace, his eyes stinging. Even in her bid to apologize for hurting him, he was equally remorseful for hurting her further. Kathryn didn't deserve to have to deal with them either. She was home, she should be happy, not running damage control at Starfleet Medical. All the focus was on taking care of them, but who was taking care of Kathryn? Wasn't that his job? Men like him did not deserve such friends as Kathryn Janeway.

"You are going to be a good father, Chakotay," she said fiercely as he held her to him. "And Seven will be a mother. I will make sure of that. I promise."

"What about you?" he asked.

"It isn't about me."

"That," he said, "is where you are wrong."

***

  
  


Oh, black, dreamless oblivion. Well, not oblivion exactly, but it was good enough. She was slightly aware through the haze of drugs and mechanical whirring. She hurt. Her entire lower body burned in pain. She wanted to move, to sit or to lie down, but she was on enforced rest. She bore her pain in a semiconscious blur.

People moved in and out of the room. Friends, doctors . . . waiting vigil for some indeterminable time. The Doctor was there, and Chakotay, talking. The Captain. Ensign Kim? Lieutenant Kim. Harry had come and left. Naomi Wildman, voice choking, avoiding Chakotay's eyes. Commander Tuvok, low voice. Lieutenant Torres trading sharp words with an orderly. Then no one, then a doctor. A nurse. A stream of vagrants in and out for what seemed like mere seconds; for what seemed like eternity.

Dull pain.

Sometime before -a day, an hour?- she had been awoken and told about what the Doctor and the Captain knew, by Chakotay, who remained neutral throughout until she made her decision. Her child, his, theirs . . . the Captain's? She had made her decision, despite the fact that in a very real sense she was going to share her motherhood with the most threatening aspect of all. It would be her baby.

Two more days of regeneration, the doctors said as if they had such knowledge. Two more after four days meant six. In three the Doctor gained clearance, and when she woke up the truth would be known.

Five genes. Five of the Captain's genes to her eighteen and Chakotay's twenty-three. Only five. A whole five! She seethed, dull resentment rising. That was more intrusion than any before, and yet it was the greatest thing that she could have done. Resentment and gratitude battled. Seven of Nine and Annika.

_"Regeneration cycle complete."_

She was supported by unseen arms as she nearly fell from the alcove, her legs afire with pain. She was not used to standing for six days, and there were other stresses on top of that. There was no scar, but the operation had occurred and with surgery came convalescence.

The people who supported her were strangers, two nurses under the supervision of a pinch-faced doctor who appraised Seven's weakened state with cold eyes as she was moved to the bed. Where was Chakotay? Where was the Captain? She had to know. Had to hear it. From them. One of them. Both of them.

She groaned as she was settled into the bed, stiff muscles protesting any movement. The doctor ordered more painkillers. Seven tried to object. She had to be awake! She had slept for six days, surely she could stay awake now! Give her a medical airgun, numb her lower body. She had to be awake when they came.

B'Elanna Torres entered, and looked wide-eyed at the empty alcove on one side of the room. She then unleashed a string of abusive language at the doctor and his two nurses for not informing anyone that Seven's regeneration cycle was over. Seven didn't particularly like B'Elanna. She was too hotheaded, but she was Chakotay's friend and she had just saved her more drugs by using that hotheadedness to drive the strangers out. That in itself warranted gratitude.

Resentment. B'Elanna Torres had a daughter.

"You feeling any better? Need anything?" the former Chief Engineer asked, surprisingly concerned as she fussed with the bedclothes. "Goddamn," the other woman muttered as she straightened the blankets and sheets. "Could they have moved her any rougher?"

"Where's Chakotay? The Captain? I need to know what-"

"They're getting that checked out. Stay still. You'll hurt yourself."

"But when did-"

"Right after the Doc got the procedure cleared. We'll know today, Seven. Don't worry. It'll be all right. And if it didn't work, they'll try it again. They had what, five viable embryos? You could end up with quintuplets, if they all worked out."

"One."

"Have it your way. It's your party. So besides that, you need anything?"

"Water."

"That can be arranged," B'Elanna replied, walking over to the small replicator on the other side of the room and commanding ice water. "How do you feel?"

"Sore."

"Wow, it's monosyllable time, huh? They'll be around soon. It's a simple scan, five second thing. And if you got good news, Chakotay will probably come running." She extended the glass of water, which Seven took gratefully, laving her parched mouth and throat. B'Elanna watched her for a moment, and then her mouth curled up slightly.

"What is so amusing?"

"I was just thinking. This is going to be one good-looking kid."

"The child's appearance is irrelevant."

"Well think about it! If this kid gets your eyes, Chakotay's dimples and Janeway's crooked smile, there will be nothing that child won't be able to get just by looking at people."

"That is irrelevant."

B'Elanna shook her head. "So boy or girl?"

"Pardon?"

"Which would you rather, boy or girl?"

"I do not care. Only the health of the infant is important."

"If that isn't the most over said phrase ever . . ."

"Do be quiet, Lieutenant."

B'Elanna Torres snorted, laughing a little. "Oh boy, won't this be an adventure."

Seven heard footsteps and she discarded her drink hastily in favour of watching the door. She ignored the Lieutenant, and was rewarded for her troubles when the door opened.

There stood the well-known countenance of Doctor as he paused in the doorway.

"_Well?_" B'Elanna demanded before Seven could.

"Where is Chakotay?" Seven cut in.

The Doctor bided his time. "I took it upon myself to come tell you, because Chakotay won't move from the spot he's standing in and the Captain's too busy bawling."

Seven nearly panicked.

Until she saw the smile spread across the Doctor's face.

  
  


_To be continued._

***

  
  



	6. Chapter Six

Disclaimer: I reserve my right to kick Paramount in the ass for ending the series, and my right to take up where they left off and do with it what I want. So there. Infringe this.

  
  


_Chapter Six_

  
  


"Congratulations, Captain, you've entered your second trimester."

All the Doctor got for his troubles was a disgruntled "bah!" as Kathryn turned away, intent on locating her housecoat. Not that she regretted anything, but she was really and truly getting sick of everyone's constant concern -their mawkish attentiveness. She was perfectly healthy, as were the two babies she was carrying, so what were they worried about?

What really galled her was that she had had to give up on coffee. It was a long-standing complaint of Chakotay's that she drank too much of it, and now he had the ultimate leverage to see that she never touched the stuff for the better part of a year. For his sake she stayed off of it. Well, not entirely. She had tried cheating once, and had discovered the hard way that the twins did _not_ enjoy it as much as she did.

Seven was nearly as bad or worse than Chakotay. The blonde woman spent every spare moment worrying, and called what seemed like at least once every hour when she wasn't actually _at_ the house. She was worse because her comments were all so infallibly logical, even though she didn't speak much anymore . . . which was almost never, since she'd never been talkative. Seven was self-conscious about her slurred speech now. Aphasia had set in, as the Doctor had predicted, but fortunately Seven was not losing any more of her articulation.

Everyone outside of the Voyager clan -except for Erin Lange, helpful soul that she was- had taken it upon themselves to be royally confused. The great and illustrious Captain Janeway was pregnant? By whom? The Commander? The _Helmsman?_

God help us, some strange alien from the Delta Quadrant?

She was sick of trying to explain it to everyone she met, and so didn't try anymore.

As it happened, Seven had procured her housecoat for her. The other mother of those greatly anticipated children made it her solemn duty to be present for every scan that Kathryn underwent. Though with her weak health she shouldn't have been out and about in the middle of September, even if the weather was still warm. Certainly not so often, but she got quite adamant when anyone tried to slip something by her.

Seven held it out to her with her left hand. It still bothered Kathryn to know that the ex-drone's right hand was useless, even if Seven adapted with discomfiting ease. She shrugged the garment on as the Doctor put his tricorder away.

"So that's it for now?" she demanded.

"For now," the Doctor agreed affably, eying her with amusement. "I hate to say it, Captain, but you need a bigger housecoat."

Seven visibly quelled a smile.

Kathryn was not impressed with either of them. "I _noticed._"

"Multiple births make for larger pregnancies all around."

"Well _really_!I never would have guessed."

At least someone around there was putting on weight. Seven seemed to get thinner with every passing week, even though her appetite was fine. She was going to have to introduce that woman to ice cream. At least now she wasn't so gaunt as before, when she had first been released from the hospital.

The Doctor took his leave with little ceremony, leaving the Captain and Seven to continue the lunch they had been eating when he had arrived. It was the weekend, and in favour of going through the frustration of scaling up her size requirements in the replicator once again, Kathryn just stayed in her pyjamas and housecoat.

"So where's Chakotay?" she asked, sitting down at her small kitchen table.

"He was asked to the history class at the Academy," Seven said as clearly as possible. She had problems with all those sibilant sounds, affecting a lisp, but Kathryn understood her quite clearly, unlike some.

Kathryn rolled her eyes incredulously. "_Again_? Haven't those kids had enough of Voyager already?"

"It's hardly a boring subject," Seven murmured, picking up her glass. "And if they are asking him, doesn't that mean that they are not asking you?"

Kathryn laughed. "Aha, see? You got me there. That's very true." Seven had certainly refined her grasp of small talk, even if the talking part was more difficult.

The eyebrow climbed smugly.

"So, Seven, come up with any names yet?"

The other woman paused. "One, for the male twin."

"And?" she prompted.

"Acoya."

Kathryn grinned happily. "That's lovely. I assume it was Chakotay's submission?"

Seven nodded. "He said it has been in his family a long time."

"Nothing for the girl?"

Seven shrugged ambivalently. "There is still time."

"That there is," she agreed with a sigh, looking down at herself. The Doctor hadn't been kidding when he'd said multiple births were big. Even at just over three months with twins, she looked like she was five months in at least. What was it going to be like later? Despite her musings, she was resolved not to give in to pre-partum paranoia, like so many expectant women did -raiding the databanks on everything remotely related to obstetrics or paediatrics. Let Seven do that, if she wanted to. She was the one who was going to be taking care of these babies, after all.

The phone beeped, and the both stood at once. Somehow Kathryn managed to get there first, and she hit the appropriate button.

_"Oh, Spirits, how did I know?"_ Chakotay immediately demanded in exasperation, looking over her shoulder towards Seven. _"I'm sorry you have to put up with her, Kathryn."_

__The woman addressed made a dubious noise. "You're no better. I'd probably have to make lunch for you too, if you weren't busy."

_"Hold that thought. I'm not so busy anymore."_

__"God _save_ me from you people! All of you! I'm not the baby here, honestly. I don't need constant supervision."

_"I beg to differ. You've been known to get into a lot of trouble in a very short time."_

__"What do you take me for?"

_"Captain Kathryn Janeway," _ he replied glibly.

She gave him a flat-eyed look. "Well if you're coming over, come over. The both of you may as well live here anyhow. I'll go somewhere else and you can have it to yourselves. Maybe I'll apply for a new commission . . . in the Beta Quadrant."

_"Noted. Send us a postcard. See you in a bit."_

The screen went blank and the Captain turned her sour look on Seven, who was affecting studious innocence for all she was worth. She could be surprisingly funny, when she put her mind to it. Seven's humour was all in expression. Kathryn laughed at her.

"What are you planning?" she inquired. "I know you're up to something. One or both of you."

"I am not 'up to' anything, however I believe the same cannot be said for other people."

"What is it?"

"I do not know."

She scoffed at that. "What do you mean you don't know? You know something's going on, don't you?"

"Yes, but not what. Chakotay can keep secrets, but he cannot keep the fact that he has a secret. It is a failing of his. He is planning something. I think his 'business' today was a ruse."

Kathryn's eyes narrowed. "The Doctor is in on it, isn't he?"

"What makes you think that?"

"Today was off-schedule. The check up was supposed to be two days from now, yet he pops in early and makes a great fuss over that fact that you're here for lunch. Isn't that the least bit suspicious?"

"The Doctor always makes a fuss."

"Not as big a one as that."

Seven considered that, then nodded slowly. "Yes. And he is rarely in such a good mood."

"You noticed, huh?"

"You are the one who tells me I notice everything."

They were both slightly startled when there was a knock at the door. Chakotay couldn't possibly have arrived yet, not unless they'd upgraded the transporter hubs over night. They glanced at each other, mutually suspicious now. Kathryn went to the door, and opened it.

She was immediately wrapped in an enthusiastic hug.

"Tom? Tom, what the hell are you doing here?" she demanded, trying to fend him off.

The pilot grinned down at her. "What's it look like? Hey, does this count as a group hug, or what?" She made a face at him and pushed him away, seeing B'Elanna following closely with K'Athra.

The Captain looked at them in consternation. "When did you get here? And I thought you were still living in fear of your father, Tom."

He snorted. "Forget him, party crasher. Hey, lunch."

"We got here about fifteen minutes ago," B'Elanna supplied, setting her daughter on her feet and shooting her exuberant husband a _look_. "We were in the neighbourhood, so we decided to drop by."

"Like hell. What is going on? Seven, you swear you know nothing?"

The other woman nodded vaguely, eyes fixated on K'Athra, who walked with great conviction across the hardwood floor, intent on some object on the other side of the room. Kathryn had noticed how Seven tended to watch any baby she saw now, unlike before when the sight had been a cause of pain.

"Hey, Captain," Tom called from the kitchen. "Mind if I make some tomato sandwiches?"

"Go ahead."

B'Elanna looked up. "Make a plateful, Tom, we'll need it."

"_Da_, comrade." He saluted his wife. "Committing I am now to greater productivity."

"He's been watching a lot of movies about the Cold War lately," her former Chief Engineer apologised.

"Communism is not amusing," Seven said staunchly, still watching the toddler.

"Sorry!" Tom apologized from the kitchen.

Kathryn was a little confused. Their arrival had been quite sudden, definitely unexpected. She was still in her housecoat. She blushed slightly.

"I'm going to go change," she muttered, retreating. She paused. "Wait a minute," she said, turning to face B'Elanna again. "Why are we going to need more sandwiches?"

The Lieutenant winced.

"She was thinking with her redundant stomach!" Tom called helpfully.

Kathryn held up her hands, her suspicion taking form. "All right, who and how many?"

B'Elanna shrugged. "I dunno. Harry, Tuvok, the Doctor, Naomi, maybe Sam, us, Chakotay, you and Seven? Not many, but enough to warrant about ten sandwiches."

When had they become so underhanded? It was Chakotay's idea, she knew. Some kind of impromptu party. He was going to get it when he showed up, the scheming man. She didn't know whether to laugh or cry. She chose in favour of laughing, and did so incredulously as she entered her bedroom. What a crew, in the general and literal sense. Where had she picked up these people? Family was right. They conspired like one, that was for sure.

There were about two more arrivals as she changed into her clothes, from the sound of Tom, the first was Harry and the second was most likely the Doctor, since she thought she could hear his voice. The last was likely going to be Chakotay, so he could come gloat at them. Even Seven had looked surprised, despite knowing that something was afoot.

She noticed with some frustration that a shirt she had replicated only a week ago was too small. Retrieving a larger one, she put it one, took a breath and emerged into the fray again.

"Captain, good to see you again," the Doctor said, grinning a grin fit to split his holographic face.

"Likewise, glad I can amuse you so easily."

"I think it was the housecoat."

She shot him a half-serious glare and turned to look at Harry, who smiled at her. He was a little more reserved than Tom when she hugged him im greeting, ever the gentleman.

"You're looking well, Captain," he said in that sincere tone of his.

She shrugged. "I guess. Personally I think I'm looking more like I've got a beach ball under my shirt every day."

He smiled a bit wider. "That too."

It wasn't long until Naomi Wildman arrived, though without her mother. There was the obligatory fuss over how big she had grown, but soon everyone left off of that in favour of other things and Naomi quietly glued herself to Seven's side. Tuvok showed up shortly thereafter, offering his quiet congratulations once again, but leaving the excited small talk to those better suited to it.

She had missed her friend. The last time she had seen him was three months ago when he had come to Starfleet Medical to offer his support there. He had soon returned to Vulcan and his family, and there had been sporadic correspondence. She knew he had not missed her in the conventional sense of the word, but she knew he had wanted to come. Usually, Tuvok had to be coerced into attending parties, even small ones, but to her great elation this was not one of those times.

She found she had missed his counsel as well, even though there was little advice Tuvok would have been able to give at this juncture. His very presence, unassuming as it was, was a comfort to her somewhat frayed nerves.

As usual, old stories began to resurface -tales of Tom's pranks, Harry's occasional gullibility and B'Elanna's strange association with the ship's warp core. All the subjects that arose were the lighthearted kind, even though their seven-year sojourn in the Delta Quadrant had been less than that at times. A few well-aimed jabs were directed at Tuvok and the Doctor, the latter replying in kind and the former taking it all in with classic Vulcan stoicism.

At last, there was another knock at the door and Tom rose to get it, since he was the closest. As expected, the door opened to admit Chakotay, but not in the way she had envisioned. She had assumed he would arrive with a smile for all and a smart-ass comment directed at herself and Seven.

Instead he came bearing a padd, saying quietly that Erin Lange had caught up to him and asked him to deliver it to her.

Gretchen Janeway had died at eleven a.m. that very morning.

_To be continued._

*** __


	7. Chapter Seven

Disclaimer. Yeah, yeah. It all belongs to Paramount, but they screwed it all up, so let me try it.

  
  


_Chapter Seven_

  
  


What might have turned out to be a rather nice little party was rapidly turned upside-down with Chakotay's arrival -ergo the message. The Captain's knees had pretty much given up on standing, and she had fallen into Chakotay's arms, crying silently. Seven had quickly retreated from the room, which had seemed rather odd to Tom at first, but she had turned up again shortly thereafter having done the Captain's packing -her own wordless support.

Somehow it came about that Tuvok went with her. Tom supposed he knew the Captain's mother, since they had been friends for so long. In the space of a couple hours, the captain had left for Indiana, leaving her flummoxed senior crew still sitting in her living room. B'Elanna was never happy to just sit, and set about cleaning the place up with all of her usual subtlety in full tow, swearing alternately at things. His wife had a good grasp of bad language, and he wasn't sure if he should tell her to curb that tendency when there were children around.

Seven seemed to regret having let the Captain leave without her. The former Astrometrics officer was showing a very odd streak of protectiveness over the woman she had seemed to be at odds with for most of her free life. There was the obvious reason for that of course, but Tom, falling on habit, speculated slightly on that.

Chakotay obviously did not like to be the bearer of bad news, and was frowning pensively at nothing, like he sometimes did. Leave it to him to feel guilty about bringing a message. And why now? This wasn't the first time he had ever brought bad news to the Captain, not by a long shot.

Of course, the whole situation was strange to him. His natural attunement to tempestuous relationships had always served him as a warning when something was going on. While on Voyager, he had refined that talent slightly. This was a five-alarm sort of day, and it had started the moment he had seen the Captain, Chakotay and Seven all in the same room. 

But Tom said nothing, and merely leaned back in the chair and observed, until of course B'Elanna decided he was in the way and chased him off. Naomi had already left for home, as had the Doctor -going wherever it was he went. Tom wasn't sure about what exactly the Doctor was up to now, not even after a year. Of course, he'd been hiding out in the woods for most of that year.

He felt very sorry for the Captain, even though he knew in the back of his mind that she had not been as close to her family in later times . . . less than she maybe would have liked. Seven years stranded out in space changed a person, he supposed. It had certainly changed him. They had all expected her to go back to Indiana after they touched down, en masse, that one fateful night . . . but she had not. She had applied to the Federation for a house in San Francisco, got it, and stayed there . . . within a mere five blocks of Seven and Chakotay, which had struck him as strange at first.

He'd always known the Captain and her First Officer were joined at the hip, but apparently it ran a little deeper, at least in some ways. Her attachment to Voyager was well-nigh gravitational, it seemed. The ship-turned-museum was in geosynchronous orbit right above the city, and from Harry's accounts she was often to be seen craning her head upwards. She would not let Voyager go, probably not even when she died.

Nor would he, for that matter.

For some reason, Voyager was still home. They had all left something there.

B'Elanna insisted that Chakotay had left the most of himself there, more that anyone else. He was sceptical. Although, Chakotay was still somewhere halfway between New Earth and the Equinox, if the look in his eyes said anything. That was where Tom thought he had lost something. Not that he could contest B'Elanna about anything concerning Chakotay, or he'd get his ear chewed off.

How he ended up sitting across from that same man in the Captain's suddenly empty living room was beyond him. Seven had disappeared somewhere, Harry had gone home and B'Elanna was puttering about in the kitchen beyond, with K'Athra following at her heels. Chakotay was still mentally exploring space, a worried frown on his face.

"Worried?" Tom inquired.

The older man seemed startled, and glanced immediately to his right. He found the view lacking, it seemed, and sighed. 

"Think you're on the bridge?" Tom asked. His former Commander had very obviously gone looking for the Captain. Even after one year, he hadn't shaken that habit? "She's only gone to the funeral. Maybe for a couple days. You're all reading missing her?"

"What? Missing . . . ? I know where she is, Tom."

"Well, she isn't to your right."

"What?"

"You were looking for her. You glanced right. Do you do that every time someone startles you out of a daydream, or what? You certainly used to, since it was usually the Captain startling you." 

Chakotay blinked, and then frowned. "So when did you become such an expert?"

"Oh, come on, Chakotay. I've been watching the two of you do the dance for the better part of a decade. You're so used to it, you even do it when she's not here. It probably goes both ways. You can see a lot from the conn station, and not just what's on the view screen." _Only at the last moment, you had to go bring in the third party, didn't you? Way to go, Big Guy, you idiot._

"What are you talking about, Paris?"

"I'm talking about how you and the Captain act." _Well, you act like a fool. You think I don't know anything, don't you? Well that's your loss, isn't it? For cutting the roots out from under her in the space of what? The second after she saw you leave the transporter hub with Seven? Good work on tactful informing, too. You left her hanging out in purgatory until you needed her, and now what? Having doubts? Poor idiot. _

God, he wanted to say it. He wanted to yell it at him. It was no great mystery what was bothering Chakotay, and he suspected that the man in question had yet to take a clue. For the Captain's sake he hoped he did, for Seven's sake he hoped he didn't. Who cared about Chakotay's sake, he had started the whole mess.

Hell had frozen over it seemed, now that Tom Paris was the one having insights. He _never_ had insights. He was pretty blind himself, though apparently not as impaired as Chakotay.

What did it take to make them see what they were doing?

And did no one see it but him?

Maybe he was just crazy, wandering off into the realm of speculation once again and getting lost. He couldn't be that off track. After all, all of the betting pools had been about the Captain and the Commander, hadn't they? There had never been any about Chakotay and Seven.

That pair of names _still_ gave him a bad feeling.

"Oh? And how do we act?" Chakotay asked ominously.

"Never mind." _You act like goddamn binary stars, is how. Just doing the dance around each other, occasionally getting close enough to exchange something . . . until some epiphany knocked you out of orbit and you both wound up like this. The Captain's starting to look more like a red giant as we speak, and we've got the three of you lunkheads to blame for that. The thought was noble, but the end result is going to be hell on all of you, I can see it coming._

B'Elanna reentered the room, looking around her, as if to make sure that she had been here before and cleaned up. She appeared satisfied, and bent down to retrieve K'Athra as the little girl tried to squeeze past her in the doorway.

"Time to go, Tom," she said quietly, breaking the tense silence. "See you, Chakotay. Come and visit us sometime, hmm?"

"I will," the man addressed said, rising to wrap both mother and child in a goodbye embrace. "Goodbye, B'Elanna. It's too bad this didn't turn out better."

_That's everyone's lament, isn't it?_

***

  
  


Kathryn had chosen a strange location to do the rest of her grieving, but then again it seemed somehow appropriate. She hadn't stayed in Indiana any longer than she had needed to without seeming distant, saying her family had felt somehow stifling at that moment.

The thing that had separated her from her mother was somehow offering solace to her. Of course, the orbital museum was closed on weekends, but they were given special dispensation to enter the inert ship that had been their home.

While it heartened her, it disheartened him. It was wrong for a ship that had once been the centre of so much life to be inanimate and lifeless. Silent. There should have been sounds -the hum of the engines, talk of the bridge crew, beep of the consoles- but there was nothing, just the deafening silence of space and Kathryn's occasional sigh as she stared at the darkened screen. Perhaps it was not that comforting to her after all.

She sat in her seat, Chakotay in his, comfortable familiarity suffusing both positions, despite the lack of activity in their surroundings. It was like all of Voyager was dead but them, stuck in the stasis of one of the endless moments on the bridge. They had spent the better part of their voyage sitting just so.

He felt some thread of guilt, being here alone with Kathryn. These moments were solely theirs. Who else had lived such a life on the bridge? Everyone else had lived from other areas, but not them. They had lived on the bridge, in the ready room. Even the idle chatter over dinner had never held so much. Maybe this was what he was missing. 

He knew the guilt was for Seven. There was no way to include her in this . . . and he wasn't sure that he wanted to. As much as he loved her, she still stood on the outside of many things. Kathryn knew many things about him that Seven did not, and vice versa, but it was different somehow.

Who else had lived a life time on the bridge, and had been prepared to spend the rest of their lives there, if that became necessary? Who had shared that unspoken resolution?

"How was the funeral?" he asked quietly, looking over at her.

"Funereal. My mother was Catholic, and it's a pretty doleful religion, even if I do respect it. It was nice though, even if my relatives wouldn't stop staring at me like I was a stranger. I hope, Chakotay, that you never have to do something like that."

"You felt like an outsider?"

She nodded, a tear escaping one eye. "They don't know me anymore."

"You have us," he stated. "It's not the same as blood relatives, but-"

She looked down at herself. "It is now," she murmured. The swell at her waist was not that noticeable yet, not at three months, but he couldn't but wonder at it. His children, and those of his best friend and his wife. That in itself sent his mind reeling. She spoke again.

"You are all I need. Just you and Seven, and Tom, B'Elanna, K'Athra, Harry and Tuvok . . . the Doctor and . . . just all of you. I suppose you're my family now. I suppose you have been for a long time. I still feel so awful for stranding you all out there, but I-"

"Don't get into that again, Kathryn. How many times must you be told it wasn't your fault? Don't you get it? What would we have missed if the Caretaker had sent us back the way we came? It's a poor trade." 

She smiled wanly. "I suppose, but the whole thing is a what if. What if the Caretaker had pulled us all out there, and then the Kazon had killed us? What if the Vidiians had gotten both ships, the time Naomi was born? What if Seska had never defected? What if we had never left New Earth?"

_Then we would not be here, wondering about it and I would have built that boat for you._

__"And it goes on and on," she continued. "With the Borg and Q and everything else. But somehow, we ended up here, even though we are short a few people. I never did get my whole crew home, you know."

"That was beyond your control."

"Was it?"

"Yes, it was." _Learn, Kathryn, that you cannot be responsible for everything._

"What if we never had Seven? What if she had died there, when the Doctor was trying to remove her Borg implants, and she started seizing?"

_What are you getting at?_

"That's a sad prospect, Kathryn," he stated. "She has given us so much."

"I know."

_And yet taken it away. Kathryn, how is it that you are always here, even when she is not? I cannot be rid of you, can I? And that's the last thing I want. What happened to our dinners, the walks on the holodeck? What happened to those times when it was perfectly comfortable just to stare and say nothing? Was it me?_

"I'm sorry this all had to happen," he said softly, looking at the gray screen.

"What?"

"All of it. Any of it. Anything that you didn't like, I'm sorry." _We dance around it like Tom says, though maybe he didn't realize what he was saying. And where is Seven in all this? I can't forget her . . ._

__"It's not your fault," she said, extending her hand to him, bridging the gap.

He took the gesture for what it was, and New Earth came flooding back, even after all the years. That was before Seven, before all hell broke loose. That time when it had been as simple as a pathogen and an order not to call the Vidiians_. _She smiled sadly at him, and his heart filled with something he had tried hard to forget. And was it his fault that she was more sacrosanct than ever? It was. He had made it that way.

_Kathryn, why can't it just stop?_

  
  


_To be continued._

***


	8. Chapter Eight

Disclaimer: All credit for characters (sans Erin), technobabble _ad infinitum_ goes to Paramount and whoever else got their foot in the door on that one. As for me, I own nothing, not even the screwy idea of kids with three parents. (That has actually happened. The procedure probably even has a proper name, and a fertility specialist who must be credited with it, so, whoever you are, thanks for providing fanfic fodder)

  
  


_Chapter Eight_

  
  


The general rule for those working in the offices on level thirteen of Starfleet Headquarters was: walk softly and carry a big stick . . . possibly a phaser rifle if it was one of Captain Kathryn's bad days. No one had the guts to suggest she take her maternity leave, not even Erin Lange. The Captain was perhaps two weeks from her due date, and showing all the expected girth of a mother of twins. Of course she could hardly injure herself doing desk work, but most expectant Starfleet officers took their leave long before two _weeks_.

For some reason, she had become very waspish of late. Some women were like that throughout their pregnancy, as Erin knew, but somehow it had come up unexpectedly one day, and everyone had been treading lightly since. The poor intern cadets who ran files around lived in fear of their lives. Captain Janeway was already a legend with the younger set, even with the older set, but a pregnant, bad-tempered Captain Janeway added whole new dimensions of terror to the tales, with or without the Death Glare.

Erin Lange was a good-natured sort who would take verbal abuse if she knew it wasn't really intended for her. She supposed that was why she had been assigned to be the Captain's secretary. She did, however, have to grind her teeth and bear it on occasion when the Captain was having a particularly bad day. Bad days being a headache, a backache, any other possible kind of ache, a pile of work, the constant calls from the other mother of the babies, and the added dimension of having two active infants playing soccer tournaments with her internal organs.

However, Captain Kathryn appeared to be in a decent mood. Erin breathed a little easier . . . that much more so when she heard her senior officer laugh at something in the other room.

"May I inquire, Captain?" she called lightly, hoping she would take it the way she used to.

"Sure," came the amiable reply. "It's Icheb's Academy report. I don't understand why they just don't give that young man four pips, a ship, a good crew and send him on his merry way into the record books. He's making every cadet class in history look like a bunch of dunces."

Erin had met Icheb -a very serious, intelligent young man, not all that much younger than herself. At first, his somewhat didactic manner had disconcerted her, until she met Seven of Nine immediately after, who was even worse when dealing with strangers. Captain Kathryn insisted that in familiar surroundings, Seven acted quite naturally. Erin had her doubts on that score. Of course, it was not her place to speculate. 

"Not to impugn on him, but he needs better personal interaction skills."

There was a snort. "Maybe, but the Vulcans do fine, don't they?"

"You're right, of course, Captain." 

It always came down to admitting that. Captain Kathryn was a total "jusqu'au bout" arguer . . . she never stood down on anything unless she could be _proven_, without doubt, wrong. That was rarely possible, at least not for her mundane self. She learned something from her superior every day, in that fashion. It was good mental exercise, even if she always lost.

Starfleet was Erin's life . . . mostly on account of the fact that she was what could be termed as a "Starfleet brat." She'd been born on a Federation science ship, the child of two crew members there. She'd gone to the Academy willingly, and lived on tales of James T. Kirk and his crew, of Captain Picard who was yet serving, and more recently on those stories of Voyager, even though they had not yet acquired the mystique of some, due to the recentness of those exploits. And then she'd become Captain Kathryn Janeway's secretary, which had stuck her in some sort of bemused zone for months . . . until she found out the Captain really wasn't so untouchable as the official reports made her out to be. 

She respected the Captain's wish not to release her personal logs. She would have done the same in her place, most likely, but still, the official comings and goings of Voyager were somehow . . . dry. Especially in the face of all the rampant familial feeling all the people from that crew exuded when they were in contact with each other. So many stories that had escaped "official." It was not her business, unless someone chose to tell her.

All she understood of late was that the very same familial feeling she had come to recognize in them had tangled Captain Kathryn into offering to be a surrogate mother to Commander Chakotay and Seven of Nine's children. _With_ the added magnitude of being a partial parent herself, due to old medical science. As an outsider, she was not privy to such things, and nor should she be, but she perceived that it had gradually produced unwanted stress between the Captain and her former First Officer . . . with Seven of Nine apparently blissfully unaware as she prepared to become a mother.

Of course, it wasn't her business, but she was a secretary, and that position provided her with an odd, oblique view of events. She thought perhaps that Captain Kathryn's dark moods could be attributed to that pervading stress that hung in the air whenever the Commander entered the office . . . which was less often of late for the same reason.

Erin mentally kicked herself. What was happening there was not her business. What _was_ her business was to help the Captain in an _official_ capacity. She was an aide, as the job description had said when she had first had it offered to her.

"Hey, Erin, would you mind getting a tea for me, or something?" came the request through the open door.

"Of course, Captain," she replied, rising. "But it will have to be decaffeinated."

There was an almost audible rolling of eyes, the silence replete with complaint.

"No stimulants, you know that," Erin said as she entered, moving to the small replicator beside the door. The replicator was not far from the desk, but one of the Captain's few -very few- admissions of discomfort had been to say that rising often from her chair was troublesome. Erin had happily assumed the role of gopher, knowing that she could at least spare the somewhat encumbered officer that. The tea shimmered into view.

"Well, what good is it then?" Captain Kathryn demanded, setting down the padd she had been working on to accept the drink.

"Maybe it will help your nerves," Erin said neutrally, fighting not to smile at her cantankerous charge.

"Huh. My nerves are fine," the Captain stated, taking a sip from the steaming cup. "On the other hand, I think I have broken ribs."

"Active today?"

"And yesterday and last night and probably tomorrow! They're getting restless, I think."

"Only two weeks . . ."

"Don't remind me."

"Most women want it over with at this stage. I know my sister did, before she gave birth to my niece," Erin said thoughtfully.

The Captains expression flickered, she looked downward. What had that been in her eyes? Regret? "Not that I'll mind not having to carry them around all day, or that I'll be able to sleep on my stomach . . . but, I've sort of gotten used to it, I think. All this enforced healthy eating, even the kicking . . . not to mention the interesting complexion changes."

"The mother's glow."

The Captain rolled her eyes. "Skin pigment increase, due to the vagaries of my pituitary gland and all the lovely blood chemicals provided by it. No, I will not miss the hormones . . . or my sore chest. Ah. I'm going to have to ask the Doctor about that." 

"You'll not be breastfeeding?" Dumb question! They weren't her children . . .

"Just the colostrum, I think, or whatever the Obs call it."

Erin shrugged, not knowing what she meant. "I don't know anything about it."

"Ever thought of having children, Erin?"

She shook her head. "No. I don't think so."

"Hmm. You're like I was . . . until I got engaged, then I thought about it . . . but there were exceptional circumstances both times. Then there was a swarm of aliens that took a liking to Voyager, and I started thinking again, even though I knew that on Voyager, it was impossible. And then there was Seven, but I suppose this is different. They aren't mine." That was said with a little sigh, patting her distended abdomen. Did the Captain regret that they were not her babies?

"Well, in the technical sense, they are, and you'll always be a part of their lives, won't you? It's not as if it's anonymous hosting, or anything."

"That's true," Captain Kathryn stated. "And Seven will need help."

"And you'll have all that maternity leave, should you choose to take it."

"Ha! Seven and I can trade places."

"Pardon?"

"She's been over at my house for most of this whole thing. I think it's my turn to stand over her shoulder wherever she goes."

Erin wagged a finger. "I'm sure she'll be stressed enough without having to fear doing you some disservice."

The Captain looked mildly offended, but her tone was amiable when she replied. "Am I really so threatening? Does everyone think I find fault in everything?"

"I don't, but those who don't know you as well liken you to Professor Chapman."

"Who?"

"Instructor Chapman, science instructor at the academy, very exacting."

"I'm getting old. I don't even know half the instructors anymore . . . or else I served with them when they were younger. Tell me this Chapman I am likened to is not some wizened old man."

"Actually, she's a fifty-year-old blonde with a tendency to blush a lot, but she's not at all like you. Not so much exacting as just plain mean spirited, I think."

"And probably not as wide as a house," the captain commented wryly.

"You manage to outdo us all in that department," Erin replied, with a wry grin to match the Captain's and a mock salute. She should take advantage of the good mood while she could.

The older woman laughed. "Such sauce, Lieutenant! I introduced you to Tom Paris, right?"

"No. I understand he left rather abruptly."

"Too bad . . . or maybe fortunate. You two could be a holy terror if you set your minds to it. Though I must hand it to you, you're a lot more tactful than he ever was. Somehow, you manage to remind me of someone different every day."

"Feeling nostalgic, Captain?"

Captain Kathryn sighed, looking out the window into the rain. It was just the beginning of April, and the weather was seeing fit to dump buckets of water on everything this week, even though the last had been fine. Erin worried at intervals that the Captain would slip somewhere and do herself injury, but she always arrived at work safely.

"Oh, damn, Erin, when am I not nostalgic? I can barely stand to know that my ship is a museum . . . it's so lifeless. Is it hypocritical of me?"

"Is what?"

"To have lived on that ship for seven years, trying to get home . . . and when I finally do, thinking of that same blasted ship as home? Here I am on Earth, and I'm missing the holodeck programs Tom made to try and recreate it for us." 

She didn't seem as melancholy about it as she had at other times. All she seemed to be searching for was an opinion, which was safe enough. "I don't think so, Captain. You're all very attached to that ship, I think. It _was_ your home. What's hypocritical about missing your home? It's like anyone else. When I lived with my parents, all I ever wanted was to come to San Francisco and join Starfleet, and I did . . . but sometimes when I'm here, I miss the place I grew up in. It's not exactly the same, but it works, doesn't it?"

"Poor Naomi is still so terribly homesick."

"I sympathize. I was born on a ship too. I grew up hearing almost nothing but exobiology all day. I had a firm grasp on the thirteen classes of mitochondria in copper-boron-based life forms by the time I was five. I miss it, even if it wasn't always the best of places."

Captain Kathryn smiled slightly. "There's no life like that of the Starfleet brat. I was a quantum physics sort of child . . . and biology, but that came later."

"What about Naomi?"

"Kadis Kot and Astrometrics, since she wouldn't leave Seven alone if she didn't attend to both. We all taught her what she could, I've never asked Sam how she's done in school, but I'm assuming well. She's terribly bright."

"Must have been the company she kept."

"Too much adult interaction, I think. She's an old soul, sometimes."

Captain Kathryn looked beyond her to the door, and her thoughtful expression immediately turned to one of deepest censure as she rose. Erin turned to see what she was taking such exception to, and saw in the doorway of the office a very tired-looking, very damp Seven of Nine. 

The Captain stalked over to the other woman, flexing her hands at her sides. "Seven, what the _hell_ were you doing out in this sort of weather?! And without a proper jacket or anything?! Why didn't you just call and-"

Seven of Nine stood there resolutely, dripping rainwater on the carpet. Erin knew the Captain's concern was well founded. The other woman could not afford to endanger her health that way . . . a mere chill could develop into something far more serious in a matter of hours, given the chance. Erin went back to the replicator, and retrieved a towel.

"I wanted . . . to clarify something," Seven said tensely, gazing at the Captain with slight, cold uncertainty. This was the woman Captain Kathryn insisted could act so naturally? Wordlessly, Erin extended the towel, but it was declined with a curt gesture

"What, Seven?" the Captain demanded. "And take the damn towel!"

Seven didn't do as she was told, merely looked down at the Captain.

Erin left the towel and scuttled outside, closing the door . . . even if she was painfully and inappropriately curious as to what Seven needed to have clarified.

  
  


_To be continued_

***


	9. Chapter Nine

Disclaimer: *makes face* Paramount owns it.

  
  


_Chapter Nine_

  
  


She had wandered into his office earlier that day for what seemed like no apparent purpose, unlike her, to say the very least. Of course, ultimately, he had found out why, and was glad he had excised the algorithm that allowed him to cry. He was sure to have been collapsed in tears, otherwise. Had she, on purpose, hidden such a thing from everyone? Or was it just that she had not known until now, when it was entirely too late?

The Doctor sat at his little desk in Starfleet Medical, gazing intently at nothing. He was the only Mach 1 EMH that was doing its intended job anymore, but that was only because what he had learned in seven years of run-time was useful. His continued existence was almost a token gesture . . . but the people from Voyager who lived in San Francisco often came for his help, the Captain, Seven and Chakotay in particular when any one of them would finally admit they _needed_ it. As long as they were around, Starfleet wouldn't decompile him for fear of the ruckus it would cause. It was nice to have allies, even if they were so unwittingly.

He replayed the meeting and subsequent checkup with perfect recall, and could not find any indication that she hadn't been fully composed the whole time. Resigned to death. It wasn't like he could have done anything if he had been told sooner, anyhow.

He looked down, gazing at the tricorder stupidly for what had to be the hundredth time.

Therein lay the physical scan that he wished desperately not to be true.

Was it some sort of backwards sadism that made her choose him to find it? He was certain she had already known what the result would be. Then again, would he had forgiven her if she had gone to someone else? She may as well have just come out and said, "Good day, Doctor, I'm suffering from jecoral and renal failure . . . How are you?"

Hadn't anyone noticed the slight jaundiced colour in her eyes and skin? Then again, it was very slight, and he had better eyesight than many people. His eidetic memory system also had something to do with that, he could always compare past images with perfect clarity.

The fact remained the Seven of Nine was dying, and there was nothing he or anyone could do about it. The only people who could help her would do so at a terrible cost . . . and the Borg were licking their wounds back in the Delta Quadrant.

The problem lay with the Borg systems that even now regulated almost every function in her body. Overtaxed by illness and poor maintenance -and therefore too much effort put into regenerating themselves- many of her implants had begun to fail over what looked like the course of the year and a half since she had given up alcoves. The faulty systems could not be removed, and even if that was possible, her health was so poor that the organs could never take up function on their own. There was no way to repair it. It was not as simple as a cortical node this time.

Somehow, he had expected this the day she had told him that she was no longer going to use the alcove she had installed in her home, and that she wished him to remove as many of her 

Borg components as possible.

It pained him to admit it, but all the medical treatment he had ever given her had only been delaying the inevitable -from the day he had removed her exoplating to the day he had unintentionally bereft her of the use of her right hand. The Borg had done too perfect a job of making every part of her dependant on them . . . except her mind, of course.

The mind he had fallen in love with, simply because he had decided to spend some time helping her learn what it was to live with human beings. Unlike him, she was one herself, but the thought was the same. They were both just learning how to deal with a different sort of people.

And he had told her that he loved her, that day on the holodeck, and what? She had lifted that ubiquitous eyebrow of hers and looked at him expressionlessly, dismissing the irrelevant hologram. She hadn't cared, she'd been too interested in other things . . . other people.

He was the only one that knew, beyond her, that she was dying. Even the much-vaunted Commander Chakotay did not know, and he _lived_ with her! Seven insisted that he say nothing to anyone, and that all the focus should remain on the Captain and the twins she carried. There was nothing wrong at all with the Captain. She could do what she had set out to do with little or no help from anyone.

The question remained, would Seven live to see it?

She was not far gone yet, but total crash loomed. The structures that reinforced her heart were weak, her liver and kidneys were pretty much shut down and with one more twitch of the implants, her metabolism would go down the drain as well. From there, she could die with no advance warning in the space of about an hour . . . and yet she refused to be monitored, refused to be hospitalized and through that perversity he had observed in her decided it was best that he neither do anything nor say anything.

Seven was hiding her illness once again, like it was her fault that she was dying, weakness on her part.

It was his fault. His weakness for giving in to her when she had demanded that he give her medical clearance to cease using the alcove, since without it Starfleet would not let her. How would they feel now that their Borg trophy was dying?

And it was his fault, because he allowed himself to be coerced by her.

He was the weak one.

Love had killed her.

The door to the small office chimed once. The Doctor was not in the mood for visitors, to say the very least. It chimed again, and he flipped the fated tricorder shut, and turned the chair around to face the door.

"Come in."

Lo and behold, thence came Chakotay . . . the look in his eyes proclaiming that he was once again looking for Seven. His former Commander had never -at least in the Doctor's eyes- had a good grasp on predicting the comings and goings of Seven of Nine. A pitiful failing in a man who professed to love her let alone her husband. On the other hand, Chakotay in general seemed to know exactly what the Captain was thinking at all times. To him, it was not so curious a thing, given all the facts.

"If you're looking for Seven, I haven't seen her. Is something wrong?" _Oh, yes, something is wrong, but you're too blind to see it._

"Not that I know of, but she's not at home. I'll try Kathryn's office."

"That's probably where she is then." _Oh, Seven, don't say anything stupid. . . ._

***

  
  


Seven stood resolutely in the middle of the office, looking slightly sallow, for some reason. Then again, she had never looked well of late, and a run in the rain couldn't have done her any good. One day, she was going to have to learn to listen to people. Did Chakotay know she was here? Like as not, they'd both be in trouble before the day was out.

"Clarify what? You want to clarify something? You want me to clarify something?" Kathryn asked, still slightly incensed by Seven's total disregard for herself. She wasn't invincible, she couldn't "adapt" to everything.

Clarify was now that most dreaded of words . . . mostly because of the unofficial Relentless Starfleet Historian Corps, who plagued her incessantly even still. When Seven wanted to either have something clarified or clarify something herself, you could be relatively sure you were in for it.

This was the coldest, tersest attitude the Captain had witnessed from Seven in a long while. She had something to say, it was obvious, and she was gearing herself for a fight because in some strange paroxysm of prescience she had determined that Kathryn would not like it. She was usually right, so the Captain prepared to face unsavoury news.

It reminded her of the times directly after Seven's holographic exploits had nearly killed her. The Doctor, of course, had kept his mouth shut, but the Captain of a moping EMH must at least feign suspicion -especially when until about that point Seven's medical status had been her business entirely, even if the woman in question hadn't signed a release.

She had done a little research, and had subsequently thrown her small desk console across the ready room in some sort of fit . . . B'Elanna had repaired it, and never asked how it came to be dashed to several pieces on the viewport.

After that, almost ever talk with Seven for a solid two weeks had been something of a silent fight.

Chakotay still did not know . . . nor did he know how close she had come in that moment to considering him as if he were some mere possession and not one of her best friends. Seven's subsequent alliance to the real man had been hard to take, but at least it had not been as underhanded. Well it had. But not to him, at least.

She received a small prescient thought of her own.

Seven was likely here to fight about Chakotay.

"I want to have something clarified," Seven stated in her somewhat slurred voice, shivering slightly.

Damn her, why didn't she take the towel?

"What then? I can't read your mind." If Seven was going to freeze up and act like they were adversaries once again, she was going to get as good as she gave.

"Why did you decide to help me?"

Kathryn paused, frowning. "When? Now? The day you stomped onto Voyager trailing your unimatrix? When the Queen tried to take you back? The time you became a one-woman conspiracy? Unimatrix Zero? What?"

Seven paused in kind. "Now."

"That's very simple. Because you want children and you're too sick to have them yourself. Because it rips Chakotay's heart out to see you in a hospital. Because I _can_. Very simple."

Seven let out a breath, her antagonistic manner dissipating somewhat. She shook her head, looking out the window on the other side of the room. "Not so simple, Captain."

"Well why the hell not? Why _can't_ something just be simple for once?"

"Because it is not. Do not try to tell me you do not know why. I do not miss the strange irony of you carrying Chakotay's children simply because I was not there for everything. Do you think I don't know the reason why you can't stand to see him upset? And vice versa? He feels guilt for you, even if he won't say it."

She recoiled as if struck, stumbling backwards into her desk. 

_Seven, Seven . . . what are you saying? What are you doing? Leave it be._

"What do you mean?"

The blond woman looked from the window to her again. Kathryn thought she might have rolled her eyes if she was predisposed to that. "Do you know that he still has nightmares about that shuttle crash where you nearly died?"

"Oh, God, which crash? If I had a bar of latinum for every time-"

"The one after the first Talent Night when the alien presence impersonated your father in order to make you give in and go with him."

Chakotay must have told her about that. What right had Seven to know what had happened to her that day? She had told Chakotay about the experience in full, even cried about it in front of him, all assuming it was in confidence. _What right had he?_

Words escaped her, somewhat. "Nightmares?"

"Yes, that you died there, like in the illusion."

"Well so what?" she asked in a dangerous tone. "It's not like I never feared for his life. We're friends, Seven, and we've both seen each other at the edge of death or worse. His propensity for crashing shuttles has long been a standing figure in my anxieties. How about yours?"

_Or was it that since you only ever professed to love him for about two months prior to our return that you never had to worry about shuttles, or the Kazon, or the Vidiians or miscellaneous yet-unknown species, diseases, states of consciousness and temporal anomalies? I'll trade you._

"What brought this on?" she continued. "Why bring it up at all? What's past is past, Seven. What's your point?"

This time the facade crumbled, and Seven looked at her desperately. "Promise me that you will stay!" Seven lisped in a dire tone, almost clasping her hands in supplication.

This was unexpected, and Kathryn fought to wind herself down from her pique. Something was worrying Seven, and desperately if it garnered such a look in her eyes. Stay where? Why? She shook her head in incomprehension.

"What do you mean?" How many times had she asked that now?

"You have to stay here, with Chakotay. Please, Captain."

"Seven . . ."

The tall ex-drone shook her head. "No, no, listen to me, Captain. When I am gone, you have to stay, to help him. He'll need help, and he can't be alone. He needs you to stay here so he has a reason. He needs a purpose almost more and I do . . ."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Kathryn demanded, aghast. "What do you mean when you're gone?"

"I am dying, Captain."

For an interminable moment, both were silent. Her mind reeled. Seven dying? Seven was fine, she was healed. The whole of Starfleet Medical had been working on her, and the Doctor . . . No, she couldn't be dying. Not now. If she was going to die, she'd have died on the operating table.

"W-what?" she stammered, grasping at the desk behind her. The babies kicked in answer to her sudden anxiety. 

"I am dying. I went to see the Doctor today . . . my liver and kidneys are failing."

"Oh no, Seven, you're not-"

Seven glared at her. "When will you _listen_ _to_ _me?!_" she almost screamed. "You cannot control everything, and certainly not whether I'm dying or not, as much as you'd like to! You are being selfish once again, because it is not you who has made the determination which makes me this way! It is my fault for giving up the alcove too soon."

Regeneration? A myriad display of images went through her mind. She had been a drone once, and knew. Yes, a drone without an alcove could not survive long. But Seven was not a drone! Seven should not need an alcove at all, if she had determined that she didn't want it.

Her eyes stung. "Oh, how can it be your fault? It was probably my fault, somehow."

Seven almost sneered. "Because you must be responsible for everything? Oh no, Captain. You think I don't realize that some part of you doesn't want me gone, so the way is free again."

The Captain began to cry silently. Seven . . . why was it that Seven was so rarely wrong, but when she was it was so total? Did she believe honestly, that she wanted her to die? Was the asperity they had both felt at one time or another so deep? She has dealt with the prospect of Seven dying before, and they had argued even then. 

Was it that she was selfish?

"What about transplants?"

"The fault is with my implants, not the organs themselves. Nothing can be done."

Kathryn sobbed, though she didn't make a sound. "Are you . . . sure?" And what about Chakotay? Hadn't they had enough? Wasn't it time to just have some peace? She would have the babies, and they would live in that house five blocks from her own and just . . . _live_ for once instead of worrying about everything and nothing?

"The Doctor would not lie to me."

"So . . . so what now, Seven? You're leaving your living will, like Chakotay is chattel?" _God in heaven, don't do what I did, or you'll end up like me even if you die._

"Hardly. I am just having something clarified," Seven said, looking out the window again calmly, as if the other person in the room was not in evidence at all.

"And . . . and what is that?"

"That you love Chakotay, and that you will stay here."

Kathryn sobbed loudly then. Had she ever planned on leaving? 

Seven sighed, and continued. "It did not take this, to realize that though. I just thought I should at least tell you. You will have to keep the children and you should not have to deal with me so suddenly." 

She closed her eyes, more tears escaping, and the door chimed.

  
  


_To be continued_

***


	10. Chapter Ten

Disclaimer: Insert convincing legal spiel here

  
  


_Chapter Ten_

  
  


_I do not know which to prefer,_

_The beauty of inflections_

_Or the beauty of innuendoes,_

_The blackbird whistling_

_Or just after._

_ --Wallace Stevens_

  
  


If ever there was a puzzling situation, this had to be it. Seven stood to one side with enough suddenly assumed ice in her demeanor that there was almost a draft in the room . . . and then Kathryn was leaning against her desk and crying unabashedly.

Clearly, the question here was, what had Seven said?

Yes, puzzling. Despite her sometimes too-literal manner, Seven rarely set out to say things that she knew would hurt people. If she inadvertently did so, she generally tried to apologize for it, but there was no hint of apology in her at that moment. The drone in her had resurfaced once again, like it had been doing off and on for a long time. She could not detach herself from her detachment, and it pained him.

Pained him? The Captain was hiccuping in her attempts to control herself as she gazed at him with such anguish that he almost recoiled from her. When had Kathryn ever let emotion show so openly on her face? Certainly few enough times to have him fumbling for a precedent. He came up rather sort in that moment, and merely managed a concerned frown, wondering if it was anything she could tell him about.

She continued to look at him with a deep and abiding sorrow that tore some part of him. Kathryn lifted a hand, as if to reach for him.

"Oh, Chakotay," she breathed, tears streaming. "I'm so-"

Seven made a sharp gesture, frowning alternately at both of them. "No, Captain."

This belayed Kathryn's words, and she looked at Seven with pure shock in her eyes. Her brow creased in consternation as she and Seven engaged in a meaningful staring match . . . until, strangely, the Captain gave in, placing her hands on her abdomen and shaking her head slowly. Tears ceased, and she merely looked somehow resolved.

Seven still chilled the room.

He wanted to know what had passed there, and why Kathryn had uncharacteristically given ground almost immediately. That _was_ _not like_ Kathryn. It was like Seven to challenge, but any argument between them -that he had witnessed- had almost invariably ended with Kathryn the victor. There was no jot of submission in either of them, but here he had seen Seven of Nine quell Kathryn Janeway.

That was something he'd never dreamed of seeing, and he wasn't sure he liked it all that much.

The silence was uncomfortable, and though it was probably entirely crass, he decided it needed breaking whether they were going to tell him anything or not. Thus, he cleared his throat. "I was looking for you, Seven. I wondered if you'd like to come out for lunch."

Her lips twisted ambiguously. She managed to look apologetic. "I am afraid that I will be otherwise occupied. Sorry," she said quietly, somehow suddenly exuding a subdued sort of affection. It was better than aloofness, even if he didn't understand the slight despondency behind it.

Chakotay changed tactics. Something needed to happen here. "Kathryn? How about you?"

She attempted a smile, but didn't do too well. She looked out the window, and apparently saw that it was no longer raining "All right. I think I'm due for a meal anyhow." She looked up, some vestige of her old implacability coming back. "Don't look at me like that, Seven. I'd like to think you have more faith in me than that."

Things went in their right order again and Seven acquiesced with a curt nod. 

He couldn't shake the feeling that there was a conversation going on right above his head. An odd sensation, and for lack of a better expression -his ears were burning. Something was going on, and it involved him. Seven apparently had willed Kathryn to keep her mouth shut. Quite a feat, but now did not seem to be the time to mull over things like that.

Seven excused herself with uncharacteristic haste, barely pausing to even kiss him goodbye. Oh yes, something was up. Seven was "efficient" to the point of aggravation, but she never rushed anywhere. Another point to wonder about.

Kathryn muttered something under her breath and turned to retrieve her coat from the hanger that stood tall by her desk. He'd often wondered where she'd gotten that particular piece, it was almost too tall for her, especially now that she probably couldn't stand on her toes for fear of overbalancing herself. A pregnant Kathryn embodied incongruity. 

Captain Kathryn Janeway _waddling?!_

The thought made him laugh every time, a carefully dignified sort of waddling though it was. She did not appear to be in such a mood that even allowed her to ask him what he was grinning at. She attempted a smile, still slightly red-eyed, and came up somewhat short again.

"What are you smirking at?" she asked.

He supposed he wasn't going to be let off that easily. "You, of course."

"Glad someone around here has the mood for it," she grumbled, shrugging the coat on. She mumbled again, something that distinctly sounded like "enjoy it while you can."

She started forward, brushing past him in a sort of haze and not noticing his proffered arm. There was a serious frown on her face, and Chakotay was suspicious.

"What did Seven have to say?" he asked, following her into the hall. Deja vu at its worst, even if she was pregnant. How many times had he followed her out of swishing Starfleet doors and into equally Starfleet halls? Incalculable times.

Kathryn made a cryptic noise. "I'll leave it to her to tell you, when she does."

"That's not an if?"

She made another, no-so-cryptic noise. "It had better not be."

"Or?"

She paused, looking back at him and frowning. "Or? Well, or nothing, I guess, but she had just better get around to it . . . or I'll do it, and to hell with what she thinks."

"I take it you're not going to tell me now."

"No, so drop it until one of us tells you to pick it up again," she commanded, starting up the austere corridor again, intent on the building lifts.

"Aye, Captain," he replied quietly. "So what were you doing before we interrupted you?"

"Talking to Erin . . . about how living on ships for extended periods of time can get to you. What it's like to grow up with Starfleet in your face the whole time. I always thought that ends up giving you one of two types of children. Either you get a Tom Paris or an Erin Lange. Fortunately, Tom sorted himself out. Others are not so lucky."

"So lucky to be stranded in another quadrant and given a field commission out of necessity?"

"Yes," she replied without hesitation. "Where would we all be without it, hmm?"

"I'd either be in jail or still kicking Cardassian faces in."

"A noble occupation," she said suddenly, obviously referring to the latter.

"Kathryn! How very un-Starfleet of you," he admonished with a slight smile.

"Huh. Write it down somewhere. It might be the last time."

He laughed at her, shaking his head. "Sometimes I wonder if you're really as fond of protocol as you'd like us to believe."

"That wasn't protocol. That was maybe a little less than PC . . ."

"I still wonder."

"Rules are malleable, sometimes, as you certainly know. Who am I to ignore that?"

She'd ignored it pretty spectactularly in the past. New Earth leapt to mind, even if he didn't want it to. He did not voice this, and shrugged in reply. "So where do you want to go for lunch?"

"Oh . . . I don't care. As long as I don't have to climb hills."

He snorted as they entered the lift. "That pretty much rules out the whole city."

"I still think that if the Federation and Starfleet were going to stand on United Nations precedent, they should have stayed in New York. That was where the UN was after all, but _no_ . . . they had to come here and found it where they founded it. Sometimes tradition is annoying," she complained, punching her index finger at the panel on the wall.

"At least it doesn't snow."

"You don't like snow?"

"I can live without it. I'm used to warmer climates . . . or ships."

She managed a half-hearted smile, still looking distinctly unhappy with what had passed earlier. "If you ever go visit Tom and B'Elanna, don't go in the winter."

"I know my geography, Kathryn."

"Do you know about dealing with a metre of snow?" 

"No, nor do I plan on learning."

She made a sudden face. "Imagine if I had to slog through snow like _this_? It'd be murder. I'm as wide as I am tall."

He gave her an oblique look. "Well Kathryn, it's not to that point, I don't think . . . but matching your height is no great feat. You're really not that big though."

She looked incredulous. "Yeah, from your angle. And it's mostly your fault. Big parents, big babies. I should have anticipated that. I haven't seen my feet in five months!"

"They're still there," he assured her, tilting his head.

She rolled her eyes. "Have you figured out a name for Acoya's sister yet?"

"No. Seven was saying that maybe you should name her."

Kathryn was silent, pursing her lips together and almost looking upset by that. Her brow creased and she cast her eyes down. She could have been described as looking at the floor, but her stomach was in the way of course. She sighed shakily. "Well, Chakotay . . . I hadn't thought about it. But now that I do, I'll turn around and say Seven should name her."

"Why?"

Kathryn winced almost imperceptibly. "Because . . . there isn't much time left."

"Babies have gone without names after they're born. What's the rush?"

She did not reply.

***

  
  


Seven walked briskly out into the somewhat chilled air, shivering a little. She had never been given to wearing heavy clothes on any occasion, though Chakotay had convinced her with meaningful looks some time ago to at least wear apparel that did not fit so closely. At least not in public.

Smiling slightly, she stepped over the curb, oblivious to the people around her, some of whom turned their heads as she passed in recognition of one thing or another. She looked down at her hands once, her still-superior vision noting the yellowed cast of the skin.

Weak, weak, weak . . . allowing mere blood toxins to kill her. And for what had happened with the Captain. She should have kept it to herself, but some fractious impulse had led her to . . . to do what? Make provisions as the Captain had said, like in a will? It had only caused hurt, and the Captain's odd behaviour would put Chakotay up in arms, which would put her to skirting questions when he finally asked them.

That was, if the Captain hadn't told him to leave it alone. 

Seven found it hard to feel her own sense of foreboding. It was there, but hard to touch on nonetheless, the greater part of her willing her to ignore it. She still had trouble with that. Despite the somewhat tired cliché, she was not "in touch" with herself. So she ignored it and lived vicariously, putting her energy into straightening everyone else out when it was she that needed it. The Captain's fear became her own, because she did not want to evoke such a reaction from her or anyone again.

Because it was painful, and ultimately pointless. Wouldn't they all know in the end?

So she tired to make such ends meet, knowing that she wouldn't be here to make it work afterwards. She wanted order where there would be chaos, at least on some level. They were all so attached to her. How had that come to be? It would be easier if she had made no such friends.

Chakotay was a lingering question, and her own pain surfaced there, undeniable. She knew what the answer was in a roundabout way, and she had laid the foundations as best she could. He would resist. Resistance was futile? Somehow, she wanted it to be, yet she did not.

She made a face, baring her teeth in nothing sort of a challenge. She was a living paradox, Human and Borg. She had tried to be rid of the latter, yet it detached her from everything still. Was it somewhat similar for B'Elanna Torres? She hoped not. It was difficult.

So she favoured neither, and made out her will despite both sides, even if only in her mind.

  
  


_To be continued_

*** 


	11. Chapter Eleven

Disclaimer: This is a disclaimer! Does it need more clarification?

  
  


_Chapter Eleven_

  
  


"B'Elanna! She's been eating earthworms again!"

B'Elanna looked out the window to see her grimacing husband trying to pry a rather large worm from their daughter's grubby hand. It had just rained, and despite the damp and cold K'Athra loved to be outside, even if she did have to wear shoes and a jacket. There was many a worm to be had on such days.

"So? It can't hurt her. As far as she's concerned, it's all gagh," she replied through the screen. "And it's your fault for not watching her."

There was a feigned retching sound. "How can you be so calm about it? _She's_ _eating worms._ It's disgusting." 

She made an incredulous noise, turning back to her work, which at the moment happened to be the kitchen replicator, which was wedged tightly between an old range and an even older dishwasher. The kitchen had been built long before the advent of the newer appliance, and it showed. The replicator itself was also rather dated, and was known to stop working with no advance warning on occasion.

She laughed a little at Tom's disgusted noises. Not that she particularly relished Terran earthworms herself, but it was hardly fair to bar K'Athra from a bit of harmless gastronomic exploration. It was also impossible to make even a quarter-Klingon be sick, not even a young one it seemed. The doctor two towns over had noted that K'Athra had a constitution that many a humanoid could envy, redundant stomach and all. 

So what if K'Ath liked worms? Tom should be thankful that she wasn't into spiders.

The little girl giggled hysterically as her father bodily hauled her inside. Their daughter as active as any toddler, a few leaps ahead of her human counterparts. She still wasn't a master of good grammar, but she was getting along.

It was funny, but B'Elanna was sure that K'Athra's first words had been "escape parabola" or a baby rendition thereof . . . due to Tom's constant rambling about flying this and that. Somehow, she had the forbidding feeling that her daughter was going to grow up to be a pilot. Tom and K'Athra Paris up in a shuttle together was an intimidating prospect to any conscientious engineer.

Tom retrieved a face cloth from somewhere and was dutifully trying to wipe the dirt from K'Athra's face and hands. There was dirt in her dark hair as well, if its mussed condition said anything. The girl continued to giggle at him. She was a good-natured kid, though she could pull tantrums to put any equivalent toddler to shame.

"Okay, so maybe it's not the worms," Tom said suddenly. "Maybe it's the dirt! I think she's probably digesting five hundred kinds of soil microbes already."

B'Elanna poked at the old circuit board. "Isn't 'digesting' the pertinent point? She can handle it, why can't you?"

"My baby daughter is eating dirt and worms, B'Elanna."

"Sounds like gagh to me. Besides," she said, shrugging and rising from her crouched position, satisfied that the replicator would work again, "it's probably good for her. You're a medic, isn't it good to be able to tolerate weird organisms? Not that any Terran organisms were ever _that _special."

He looked at her with hooded eyes. "It's nasty."

"Oh, get a life. She's enjoying herself. Quit being so overprotective."

"B'Elanna, I just saw her dig for and eat about six fat, wet and _wriggling_ worms! Agh!" He let K'Athra go and threw his hands in the air, turning away from both of them and retreating to the couch in the living room.

Their daughter watched him go, rather wide-eyed and probably wondering what his problem was. There was still some dirt on her hands, and she looked up at her mother, all the while trying to shrug her jacket off.

"Your father's delicate stomach is getting to him," she murmured, as if the girl would understand that explanation in all its contexts.

K'Athra freed herself of her little blue coat and held up her hands for inspection. "Ma," she said with great importance. "Dirty."

"Yes, I suppose so." 

"Up, Ma!"

B'Elanna relieved the child of her shoes -they were dirty also, and she was known to kick- and picked her up. She was getting a bit heavier these days, but it was nothing she couldn't handle comfortably. The real problem was that K'Athra was just _bigger_, which made her a bit hard to manoeuvre through doorways and such. As was her wont when her hands were dirty, she buried her hands in her mother's hair. B'Elanna sighed resignedly.

"Did you get that replicator working?" Tom asked hopefully.

"I think so . . . no thanks to you, Mr. Handyman."

He made a noise. "Hey, I'm not the one who fixes things. If I tried repairing that replicator, we wouldn't eat for a week. I'll just operate it, thanks."

"Yeah, and bust it again before the week's out."

He moved over on the couch as she made to sit. K'Athra, who was still holding on to her mother, extended a slightly dirty hand towards him, burbling. He shied away accordingly, unwilling to be touched by a hand that likely had worm viscera on it. He could be so squeamish . . . and at the weirdest of times.

Instead of objecting, he nodded. "Probably," he agreed, "but I'm sure you can fix it."

Upon having thought of the likelihood that K'Athra had gotten the aforementioned worm guts in her hair, she moved the girl off of her lap with a slight grimace. She gave Tom an oblique glance. "Ah, now I know why you keep me around."

He grinned at her . . . the wicked sort of grin that drew her even while she wanted to smack him. Still smirking, he shuffled closer to her, a precarious position, because he was known to be free with his hands on occasion.

"Oh no," he murmured close to her ear. "I keep you around for more than that."

She gave him an appraising glance. "You want something broken, Lieutenant?"

"Depends on what you mean by it."

She pushed him away, laughing even while she was slightly irritated. Eventually she'd get around to telling him of course . . . some opportune time when it would catch him off-balance, so she could watch his expression and laugh. At the moment, he was sprawled over the opposite end of the couch, feigning some great injury.

"Ugh!" he cried. "Spurned! My heart is breaking."

Now was as good a time as any. "Apparently I don't spurn you enough, Helmboy."

He jerked upwards, blinking. "Pardon me?"

She pulled her loose shirt tight over her stomach. "Notice anything?" she asked innocently.

This time he fell over with no real help from her, somehow ending up in a heap over the arm of the couch. He scrambled upwards again, his blue eyes showing some strange combination of surprise, joy and fear all in one. She supposed the fear was at the prospect of having to handle her mood swings again . . . alone. B'Elanna almost laughed at him . . . and would have if that strange look hadn't turned into one of abject reverence. That sort of thing could go to a woman's head if she wasn't careful.

"Holy hell," he breathed, climbing back onto the couch. "How didn't I notice?"

"You were too worried about worms. And what kind of a reaction is that?"

His hand strayed forward, as if to feel the slight thickening of her waistline. Then he drew back. It struck her that the admonition "I don't bite" didn't apply to her. He held up his hands helplessly. "What would you rather?"

"I don't know, but something other than 'holy hell.'"

"Well, what did I say the first time?" he asked vaguely, his mind off in other places as he stared fixedly at her midriff.

"I don't remember. Probably something like that too."

"Wow," he said with complete awe. This time he did touch her, and she couldn't contain her smile.

"Why wow? This is what happens when you-"

"Oh, shut up, B'Elanna," he muttered, pulling her to him and kissing her possessively.

For a moment she forgot how to use her brain for anything but nervous response, so she just held on and enjoyed herself, knowing that it was this sort of thing that had provided the object of this conversation in the first place. It got a little out of hand, for her part, and she had to push him away before she dragged him bodily into the other room.

Tom looked down at her, visibly trying to contain himself. He glanced guiltily over to where their firstborn was trying to put the TV converter into the VCR Tom had procured since. Of course she did it with great conviction. K'Athra was always serious about such things, and of course, she was paying no attention to her amorous parents.

She patted his chest affectionately, still in his arms. She grinned. "Do control yourself, Dad."

He looked back to her, pure mischief in his eyes. "I am trying, Mom. The same goes for you."

"Touché," she said, drawing away.

"Wasn't that what I was doing?"

She stood up, looking out the window to the damp green forest beyond. "I went to the doctor's just to be sure. He got it confirmed, but he admitted that he doesn't know much about hybrid pregnancy, at least not of my description. We should probably go see the original family physician."

Tom groaned dramatically. "Ah, sure! The walking text book has once again become my doom! Are we going to have to live in California now? I don't think I can take it yet."

She gave him a sour look. "No, we do not have to _live_ there, but we should at least go spread the good word. They'd never forgive us if we didn't tell them, and the Doctor would probably yell at me and kick you all the way around the city for not demanding his expertise immediately . . . And you know it."

"You'll have to protect me."

She rolled her eyes. "You need the protection of a _pregnant_ woman? If that doesn't bruise your ego, I don't know what would."

"No, no, a pregnant _half-Klingon_ woman!"

She directed a long look at him. "Do you want to fight or something?"

"That also depends on what you mean by it."

"Will you think _above_ your waist for a moment?"

"I told you, I'm trying," he said with an irrepressible grin. 

"Well, we're going to San Francisco, so there. We were going to go anyhow."

"Huh?"

"Do you honestly think I'd miss the birth of Chakotay's children?" she demanded.

"Uh, well . . . no, I didn't."

"Good. Start packing."

He rose from the couch, saluting her. "Aye, Chief." It appeared he couldn't resist grabbing her and pulling her into his arms again as he passed. He tangled his hands in her hair, and she suppressed a giggle as his expression changed from one of warmth to one of chagrin.

"B'Elanna," he said in an uncertain voice. "What is in your hair?"

"Whatever was on K'Ath's hands," she said. This time she did giggle.

He grimaced. "Oh, God. Kids really know how to kill a mood, don't they?"

  
  


_To be continued_

***


	12. Chapter Twelve

Disclaimer: spiel about infringement and how I didn't mean to do it honestly! _ad nauseam_

  
  


Note: Uh, depending on how touchy you are, the rating of this chapter might be a__ stronger than the others . . . about PG-13. I don't think it's that bad, but I'll err on the side of caution.

  
  


_Chapter Twelve_

  
  


She supposed this was what people called "the wee hours of the morning" . . . when everything was so still and quiet, even in a city the size of San Francisco. The gray false dawn lighted the room somewhat, and gave the pale curtains at the windows and ethereal look.

She had seen many a "wee hour" before this, Queen of the Late-Night Long Haul, but never from this perspective -lying on her side in bed, with some strange awareness surfacing that the two soon-to-be-people inside her were getting a lot more sleep than she was. A wee hour on Earth was something different, she surmised, as opposed to the shift-cycles of a ship, which had no discernable beginning or end. Only the twenty-four-hour clock decided whether it was daytime or night . . . following the rotation of a planet that really had no bearing on it.

Intermittent insomnia had always plagued her, until lately when the weight of the twins had begun to truly tax her. She also often wished that Human beings did not carry their offspring in such an inopportune place as the front of their abdomens. It had made her body decidedly unwieldy, she noticed.

Tonight, even the strain of pregnancy had not sent her willingly to sleep. Maybe she had slept a little sometime earlier, but she now found herself wide awake and staring through the window across from her bed. The sky was, for once, not overcast and she could watch the stars wane in the face of the impending dawn. Those stars . . . would she ever be up there again? Not for a long time. She had other things to worry about now.

She fought at the dawn mentally. Another dawn meant another day . . . a day of knowing what everyone else did not and dreading it. A day of knowing that she was that much closer to giving birth. She could feel the odd muscle twinge already, and knew what that meant. Only six days now. 

Six days.

It scared her to be alone, as much as she hated admitting it even to herself. Of course, she had known it would be like this. . . .

Somewhere in the back of what she hoped was every female psyche was that impression of the "right way" to go about the process of organizing a family for oneself. No matter how hard human females had fought it in history, there were always the imperceptible inklings about homemaking and how one might go about it. She didn't like that part of her at all. She wanted to be and was a Starfleet Captain, not a housewife.

In point of fact, she wasn't even married.

Now that hit it, some part of her had this great conviction that early-morning musings about impending motherhood should most definitely include . . . someone on the other side of the bed.

She exhaled into the silence that greeted that thought. And grimaced as other parts of the stressed mind added to it. "Someone on the other side" became a protective, familiar, dearly loved, dark-haired and tattooed someone.

Of course everything about her current situation was far less than par with anyone else's. She was giving birth to the twins of two of her best friends, one of whom was dying and the other which she just could not justify her attachment to. And an added note of discord, the twins were verifiably 10.87 percent her own.

And what on numbers? If Seven died . . . _when_ she died . . . the babies would be left to her almost by default, since Chakotay was likely to be too heartbroken to even deal with his own children. Or maybe not. Chakotay could pull himself up by his bootstraps when he had to, she had witnessed it. Surely his children constituted a "had to."

Oh, and Seven. Seven! Goddamn her, really. Not for being as she was . . . everything would be much better if it could even be hoped that she would live . . . but all of Tuvok's carefully drummed-in logic welled up in Kathryn and she knew Seven was dying as surely as anything. The Doctor would not lie, and Seven would never say such a thing just for shock value.

Seven, an inestimable thorn in her side, even when she wasn't trying to be.

Seven, alternately a good friend and cold-hearted bitch.

God, she was going to miss that particular thorn.

She rose -well rather she huffed a bit and hauled herself upwards and out of bed, quickly regaining her equilibrium with an ease born of practice. It was hard to stand up straight sometimes, when one had to lift up and throw forwards such excess weight and then carry it because it -_they_- were part of one's body. Her muscles twinged, a natural physical response produced by some unheard biological signal that it was about damn time to get it all over with. 

Not part of her for much longer, she supposed, but then forever . . . forever afterwards.

She knew that at least one baby was turned downwards -she had been receiving kicks to her lower rib cage instead of punches. At least one . . . Acoya or his unnamed companion, yet which? Somehow she thought it was the girl. She didn't know why, but some feeling told her that the girl-twin was more audacious than her brother.

Yes, about damn time to get it over with.

She walked out of her bedroom into the hall beyond, heedless of the gloom that made everything ripe for inauspicious collisions. One thought figured above all. She wanted -_needed_- coffee. She craved it like she'd been craving myriad things for months.

Yet she hesitated at the kitchen door, staring at the long-unused coffee machine. What was the harm in a cup? Two cups? Two small cups? Well, her muscles were already twitchy, a stimulant like caffeine was ill-advised at this juncture. There was no fear of sickness anymore, which had abated long since but . . .

There, she could hear it. The amused voice, an audible smile, the tangible devotion.

_"No, Kathryn."_

She sighed. No, Kathryn. How many times had he told her that? How many times had she told herself that? No, Kathryn, not so close, not so far, too much, too far, you're leading him onto this, how can you- 

Whose fault was it that her thoughts were running away in the middle of the night? Hers, his . . . Seven's, because she had wrung a confession from her, though Kathryn had never voiced it.

_"That you love Chakotay, and that you will stay here."_

She had said it so calmly, with such surety that Kathryn wanted to beat the impassive face in for a fleeting moment. That she would stay here. Where to go? Indiana? Phoebe, she loved, but everyone was a stranger to her except for the people she had led for seven years.

Sisterly love was . . . nothing . . . to this. . . .

Kathryn still stared intently at her coffee machine. No, it was nothing to a voice . . . the mere memory of a voice that could deter her from coffee. Nothing to the conviction that she could help Seven become a mother. Nothing to strange pride she felt whenever she saw Tom, B'Elanna and K'Athra and nothing to that other sort of pride she had experienced upon seeing Harry promoted.

There was nothing, no matter how rooted in childhood and past, that surpassed that in her mind. She had longed for home and Earth, but then her fiance had run off, her dog had died and then her mother had passed away.

God damn it, she wanted Voyager back. She wanted the laughing and the fighting, tears, isolation and _everything_. Oh, God, how she missed it. She even missed the days when she and Chakotay had barely been able to be in the same room together, due to one type of discomfort or another. And then . . . and then what? Had he left her too, then?

What claim had she to think that the closure of a door that had never been opened warranted some sort of betrayal, when she had been fighting since New Earth to keep it closed?

It was her fault. She had pushed him away.

Could she blame Seven for seeing that the way was open?

No.

Some part of her screamed yes, that she would blame her for the rest of her life.

_"I do not miss the strange irony of you carrying Chakotay's children simply because I was not there for everything." _

If that wasn't confirmation that Seven didn't know full well what she was up to, Kathryn didn't know what was. But it didn't matter. The fault did not lie with Seven. Hell, who was she to even be thinking of . . . 

Pining for and lusting after another woman's husband? Mental lechery. Way to go, Kathryn Janeway. "No, Kathryn" indeed.

Strange thought, a woman nine months pregnant having the energy to lust for anything, but there it was. She couldn't pretend that she wasn't attracted to him, and it wasn't something you could just ignore at will. Hormones in general plagued her sometimes.

The strange irony of . . . oh, sure, there was a thought. Carrying Chakotay's children, though with none of the regular preamble of course. Hurray for medical science, it killed the fun in everything.

_No, no, no, no!_

She could not -_would not_- go there. She would not.

Love and test-tube babies were one sort of thing, sexual frustration was another.

She stared still. She really needed a coffee.

And yet the Starfleet Captain still looked down upon the weak mind of Kathryn, who was too rooted in the carnality of advanced pregnancy and what could literally be termed a seven-year itch to see the facts of the situation. Former First Officer or not, and his marriage aside, he was still her subordinate and should be treated as such if she ever expected to retain any dignity at all.

What had ever happened to self-control? Self-respect?

_Hell on control and respect, I'm going insane._

Maybe she should talk to someone. The Doctor maybe. Perhaps her problems really _were_ rooted in the hormones she was exuding in the last week of her term.

_Oh? So why have I been feeling this way for . . . oh, seven years? Maybe almost eight by now? This just reminded me I felt that way and how on some nights on the ship I was practically climbing the walls . . . Ha! I wonder what the crew would have thought of that. The Captain's late night work-a-thons born of a need to distract herself_ _from fantasies._

_I need coffee. _

"No, Kathryn," she said aloud, suddenly conscious of the fact that she was gripping the doorframe. There was an outlet for stress, she could put nail gouges in the doorways. Not exactly what her nerves were wanting.

The Captain was right, as always, and the part of Kathryn that was actually on _Seven's_ side was right as well. No matter what Seven thought would occur after she was gone, nothing was going to happen. She would say nothing and do nothing but try to help Chakotay through it all. Nothing else. Not even if in his grief he wanted her to-

_Hell, damn and no! No! Shit! Don't even _think_ about it!_

No coffee, either.

_"No, Kathryn."_

Exactly. Couldn't have put it better.

She jumped when the phone console beeped. She looked sourly over at it, as if it could be affected by her glare. Who the hell would be calling at this hour? It beeped insistently. 

  
  


_To be continued_

***


	13. Chapter Thirteen

Disclaimer: Not mine. Someone else's. And it's all done anyhow. (i.e. Live long and syndicate)

  
  


_Chapter Thirteen_

  
  


Tom pounded on the door with renewed enthusiasm. Nobody had answered the polite chirps of the doorbell, and nobody could be seen through the curtains when some judicious peeking was done. So good old-fashioned pounding it was, though that appeared to be having as little success as the beep that could dare be called a doorbell.

"It appears we missed the party," he murmured, turning back to where B'Elanna stood holding K'Athra in her arms. "I told you we should have called."

She shrugged slightly. "Well, we didn't. So there. What now?"

He looked past her into the street. It was midmorning, and for some reason few people were about. Even though it was raining, he found the weather quite pleasant as opposed to the chill of an April in northern Ontario. Yes, much better, if just as damp. He shrugged back at her.

"I don't know. Maybe they're off at work or something."

"Tom, it's the weekend. Even Starfleet lets people off on weekends," she reminded him somewhat smugly. "Maybe they're just out for breakfast."

"Or maybe we really did miss the party."

"Don't you dare even say it. They'd have called."

He was sceptical. "Are you so sure? Well, only one way to find out. Let's try the Captain's place. Maybe they're over there."

"You get to carry the luggage."

He shrugged. "That's all right. We didn't bring much. I thought we were going to stay here for a while."

She hefted K'Athra slightly and turned around up the old cement walkway that led up to Seven and Chakotay's house. Tom noticed the carefully ordered garden. Who was the gardener? He looked again. Maybe it was both. The plants were too carefully balanced not to warrant some interference by Seven -too symmetrical- but they were also, in the same thought, too haphazard to be entirely hers. He lifted the two suitcases that he had set on the doorstep.

"We _are_ going to stay for a while," she cut in. "But that's the beauty of civilization. Big, new and _working_ replicators. And shops. I've got more back-pay credits from Starfleet than I know what to do with. And so do you."

"I sense that was a not-so-subtle hint?" he inquired, falling into step beside her as they walked up the street.

"No. I like living up there. It's peaceful. I find I like that for once."

"Motherhood has mellowed you," he said sagely, wondering if that was a safe comment to make.

"Taking care of two Parises has taught me to value quiet, is what."

He winced at her tone. No perhaps not a safe sentence, and she was not all that mellow.

"Ah, I see. Sorry we had to go make it three."

She gave him a sideways glance. "Sorry, hmm? You weren't sorry at the time."

"Never am," he agreed.

"Good."

"Ha. I guess."

He didn't know why B'Elanna insisted carrying K'Athra. Their daughter could very easily make a five-block walk without too much incident or fatigue. He had often noticed that his wife was very protective . . . occasionally in a scary lioness-and-her-cub way. Unless it came to worms, then she didn't give a damn.

He wasn't sure if she wouldn't actually resort to ripping throats out if she thought the situation demanded it. To live with a Klingon was to wonder every day. At least he could say that she liked him. It was comforting to know that for the most part, she was on his side.

For the most part.

Somehow all that translated into wanting to carry her nearly two-year-old daughter everywhere instead of allowing her to walk. B'Elanna was strange sometimes. And now there was going to be a second baby. He wondered if that would temper her a bit. Most likely the exact opposite, if precedence meant anything.

All in all, it didn't matter to him. Her mood swings could be frightening, yes, but it would take a lot more than that to deter him. What would his father think of that? Tom the Transient Paris needing more than a slight push to bail out? That was why Tom didn't want to see his father, because questions like that would turn any reunion into a re-enactment of childhood lectures. Although, he wouldn't have minded seeing his mother . . . but if you got one you got the other. Owen Paris dominated everyone. Except for Kathryn Janeway, of course. That was no surprise to him. The Captain was the straightlaced daughter the Admiral had never had. The poor Captain.

That didn't matter to him . . . and yet it did. Strange.

He convinced himself that he didn't want his father's approval, and left it there.

He and his little family traversed the five blocks in short order. Tom noticed that the Captain's house was dark, and surmised that she was probably not at home either. So what then? Coincidence? False labour? Now there was a possibility. He'd had run-ins with _that_ before.

But maybe -just maybe- the real thing? Only a few days until her due date, if B'Elanna was correct. B'Elanna probably was. She was a maniac about keeping track of numbers sometimes.

Yes. Perhaps, today was it, and B'Elanna was just being arrogant in assuming she'd get a call right away.

***

  
  


Captain Kathryn Janeway -as it happened- was not in labour. Nor was she in false labour or having any such trouble. She was sitting in a deserted waiting area in Starfleet Medical, tired because of her lack of sleep.

She had been there since about dawn that morning.

She had not eaten. No one was there to tell her to. 

She sat silently, numbly, wringing her hands a bit, and she stared with dejection at the floor. 

***

  
  


Tom dropped the suitcases as soon as he entered the room, a testament to his occasional flippancy. He stood for a moment and gazed about, inspecting the room as if any hotel establishment on Earth was ever suspect anymore. Of course, they had used her name and credit for the room. He was so paranoid sometimes, especially when in San Francisco. She wondered when he'd get over it and she could _really_ meet her in-laws and introduce their grandchild to them. She had only met him once, and somehow she doubted Admiral Paris was as fearsome as Tom made him out to be. His initial greeting to the three of them had been a bit stilted, but she could hardly fault him for that. It had to be a shock to see your long-lost son and his hybrid family suddenly drop onto your doorstep. No, she did not think he was so bad. Exaggeration was one of Tom's strong suits, after all.

However, she would tolerate none of this dreaded "grilling" that Tom insisted would occur. No one got to grill Tom but her, and that was it.

Tom was still scrutinizing the upholstery for some reason. The room was absolutely fine of course. There was even a sort of trundle for K'Athra, who was wont to fall out of beds that weren't either cribs or at floor level. She was an active sleeper, as was her mother. Jumpy Klingon muscles, she supposed.

"Tom, what are you doing?" she asked, setting the squirming K'Athra on the floor.

"I don't know. Checking out the living arrangements."

She pursed her lips dubiously. "I see. And do they meet your Highness' strict standards?"

He shrugged, refusing to rise to the jab. "Fine enough, I guess."

"We could have gone to Starfleet Residence," she stated. "They'd have taken us in, since we both got our official commissions now, if not missions in general. How would you have liked that, O Inscrutable One?"

"I would not have, O Ye of Little Faith," he quipped, matching her supercilious tone, but grinning a little and therefore dispelling her antagonism. "The last thing I want is to be sharing a glorified apartment building with half the commissioned quadrant. And K'Athra would probably be put in a creche for the day as we worked out the paper trail, and you know she wouldn't put up with that. Neither would you, for that matter. You'd drive the caregivers buggy."

"High praise," she murmured.

"Have I anything but for my wife? She'd kick my ass if I ever said otherwise."

She grinned. "That she would."

His eyes danced at her, telling her more than he himself ever did. She loved his eyes. She was relatively sure that her penchant for the colour blue had started from both looking at the warp core and looking at him. K'Athra had his blue eyes. She was going to be a heartbreaker when she grew up. And a pilot, ack.

"So what now?" he asked, making an expansive gesture. "We don't know where anyone is, or why they're gone." 

She shrugged ambivalently. "I have no idea. We could go take a walk, go have some lunch, shop . . . Suppose the Captain was in the hospital already? How would we find out which one? There are tons of them in this city."

"That's easy. She'd be at Starfleet Med. The Doctor's there, and he's been doing all the preliminary work. They'll probably have him deliver too. Keeping it in the family, you know?"

She made a face. "We keep it in the family so much it's a wonder we noticed that we left the ship at all. Whenever it is that we have a reunion, you know it'll be an exercise in schmoozing. And a ton of people married others from the ship, ourselves included. Give it a couple generations and we'll all be related."

"I wouldn't doubt it," he said with a snort. "See, what if K'Athra and the boy-twin, Acoya or whatever, got married? That'll have the whole senior crew in on one gene pool except for Tuvok and Harry. One more generation down and you never know. This is why I knew it was pointless to come home anyhow. Nothing changed but the scenery." 

She shook her head. "At that point, it'll feel like we're inbred."

"The situation's weird enough for me already. Kids with three parents . . . and _those_ three parents. I'm surprised they all haven't gone insane by now."

She sat down on the bed, watching K'Athra toddle over to the window beyond. "Well, I'm not," she stated matter-of-factly.

"How come?"

"Because they all love each other too much to do anything stupid. I know the Captain and Seven fight, but you know how it is when they're both in a relatively good mood too. The Captain would kill and die for her, and Seven would give over to the Borg in the same breath if she could trade herself for the Captain. Chakotay is married to Seven and that explains itself. I don't care how much he wants to deny it, but he loves the Captain as much if not more. She feels the same way about him, that's obvious. If I didn't know them and the situation as well as I do-"

"You could accuse Chakotay of polygamy, if you didn't know it wasn't true," Tom stated, wincing. "They're so tangled up together that it's impossible for them to do anything but be entirely proper about it, because no one of them could stand to hurt the other two."

"Exactly."

"Are we the only ones who get that?"

"I guess. They sure don't, at least not consciously."

"Doesn't it drive you crazy?"

"Yes."

"They are so-" He paused, looking for the word.

"Bewildering?"

"Actually, I thought exasperating."

"That too."

B'Elanna sighed. So, so complicated. So many things could blow up in their faces if the wrong word was said, the wrong impression given. And what of the twins? What were they being born into? A big mess, which would come to centre around them, she knew. B'Elanna knew how very close one became to the idea of children when pregnant. Would the Captain hand those infants to Seven without balking? No. Never, because that was not the way it worked. Even if you were wholly detached, and the Captain certainly _was not_, she didn't think any woman could willingly give up her children to another . . . even if they were mostly that other's. It just would not work, Why had the Captain been crazy enough to try it?

Someone was going to have to help. To lend an ear and possibly a shoulder to cry on. Chakotay was obviously out of that category by reason of his association to both women. So who did that leave?

"Let's go check at Starfleet Medical. See if anything's up," she stated.

"We could call . . ."

"No. Let's just go."

"All right. Tally ho," Tom murmured, noting her pensive expression and echoing it.

  
  


_To be continued_

***

  
  



	14. Chapter Fourteen

Disclaimer: Je n'ai reçu pas d'argent et je ne le recevrai pas pour cette histoire. (Ca m'est égal, que vous faites, Paramount)

  
  


_Chapter Fourteen_

  
  


**_WARNING!!!:_**_ BAD word alert, okay? Bad enough a word to make this chapter NC-17, you got it? Sometimes angst can run away with vocal chords . . ._

  
  


He couldn't think straight. He didn't _want_ to think straight, but he had to. It was beyond him, his clear thinking had come and gone in the moment of realization that Seven had not merely been sleeping. He wanted to scream; he wished devoutly that the tiled floor would swallow him up; he wanted to rise and pound a fist on the wall in ineffectual fury; he wanted to lie down and never get up again. This was not happening. It couldn't be. Oh, why hadn't she told him?

It had happened very early that morning, when he had been lying awake in the bed they shared, staring out the window and thinking of this and that-

_Goddamn you, man. You were thinking of Kathryn while Seven was-_

Chakotay had thought she was sleeping. She had been so still. Seven was always still when she slept, some sort of unconscious economy of movement that she even possessed when awake. Seven never did anything without a purpose, well founded or otherwise. He had turned on his side and looked at her, noticing for the first time how dark her complexion seemed. It almost seemed like the same sort of change that happened to paper when it wasn't taken care of. He had thought nothing of it, at the time.

Then he had listened, and found that the regular sound of her breathing was missing.

_Oh, Spirits, how did I miss it. Kathryn was wrong, I can't take care of anyone . . ._

__The soft sounds that should have been there had been replaced by silence . . . and then a hideous shallow wheeze that made his heart constrict every time he heard it. Too many walks in damp weather, that ill-fated dash to the Captain's office . . . it had been too much for her to take.

Chakotay was now aware that every shallow breath might be her last, but had thought as much when he had first realized what he was hearing. In his panic, he had leapt out of bed, his thoughts surprisingly clear despite the fact that he was sure he was having a heart attack. He got dressed.

He had called an ambulance.

He'd called the Doctor.

Then he called Kathryn, who had been awake at the time, no less.

What was he doing? Why was he here? How was it that in the near two years they had been together, a blight had seemed to hang over Seven? Was that the price of her smile, her happiness? She claimed happiness, and she never lied outright. Could it ever have been different?

First the three months of agony while the Starfleet scientists and exoengineers were on the very edge of dissecting her, then her debriefing, which she had come out of looking so careworn it killed him. It made him hate Kathryn's precious Starfleet all over again, until he realized that what had happened to her had truly been a mistake. Then her influenza, the first blow to her health. She had recovered, become pregnant and swore off the alcove. Then she had miscarried, and almost bled to death. The Doctor, driven by her nagging, had tried to disengage more of her implants. The hologram had been as careful as possible -he loved Seven and was in more agony over damaging her than anyone, Chakotay knew that- but had injured her nonetheless. And then, they had tried for another baby . . . and here he was.

Here she was, near death on a hospital bed, he blood being artificially oxygenated and filtered, since her liver had shut down from the strain of keeping up with what looked now like pneumonia. Liver failure, influenza, pneumonia, miscarriages . . . these were all things that modern medicine could have taken care of easily . . . 

If not for the implants, which complicated everything by rejecting infants, nullifying antibiotics, neutralizing hormone regulators and shutting down her organs. They even prevented transplants on the sole fact thatthey were there and could not be removed or made to accept new tissue.

Ironically, throughout it all, her cortical node was functioning beautifully.

She could not survive, even with the twenty-fourth century version of dialysis, effective as that could be. He had not heard the prognosis. He didn't want to know when it would happen.

And she had kept it from him! She had known for -what? A week? And he had been to blind to see, and she too backwards in her ways to tell him. He had an awful suspicion as to whom else had known before he had.

Curiously enough, Kathryn had not come knocking at the door. He knew she had come to the hospital. She wouldn't stay away if you bodily prevented her, yet she had not surfaced. She was probably in some waiting area, feeling guilty about things she couldn't control.

That was what Kathryn did. She acted when she could, but generally sat around chastising herself when no action could be taken. Like it was her fault, or something she could have prevented and hadn't. She and Seven were similar that way, but Seven only did it when _she_ was sick, or had hurt someone else, and Kathryn did it when things happened to other people that she couldn't control.

He supposed he was just as bad, believing her when she had said that taking care of people was his strong point and then berating himself when both of them had turned out wrong. It was ridiculous . . . this vicious cycle they had started. At first it had just been himself and Kathryn, and then due to myriad circumstance, Seven got pulled along too. Love, denial, argument, event, guilt. Not necessarily in that order, nor was that necessarily all that ever happened . . . but on and on it went, and he at least had no idea how to stop.

Ah, no, not everything was included in that list. Not that which drove the two of them from love into denial . . . love was a safe topic, as compared to a cloying tension that hadn't faded a jot since it had been recognized.

_Recognized? That was when . . . what? As soon as I was beamed onto that bridge and had the death glare put on me? The prospect of dying because of a glare had seemed so . . . pleasant._

He couldn't even pretend to believe that Seven didn't know. Hadn't she demonstrated often enough that she knew bloody _everything_? Somehow, seeing her die was like betraying her . . . it was like he was purposely inserting himself into a situation where he and Kathryn would be alone, for lack of a better term.

And at times it still felt that he was betraying Kathryn by being in the hospital room instead of out in the waiting area with her. Vicious cycle.

He was an idiot. He should never have even tried to live anywhere near both of them at once. But he couldn't have left at any point. Was it arrogant to think that they needed him? Probably, but he knew he needed them -both of them- and thus far neither had shown any indication that the feeling wasn't entirely mutual.

Mutual feelings. Goddamn her, why couldn't Kathryn have shown him those mutual feelings before he got sidetracked?

Sidetracked?! No! No, no, no. Seven was not a sidetrack, not a diversion. Never. 

Oh, Spirits, what was he doing?

"Chakotay?"

To hell with what he was doing, she was awake.

"Seven?" He reached towards the bed and clasped her hand in his, and was relieved to feel her returning squeeze. "Oh, Spirits, Seven . . . why?"

"Chakotay, what-?" She didn't manage to get it out, whatever it was. She was seized in a fit of coughing almost immediately, a terrible rattling hack that left her red-faced and tired when she finally leaned back into the pillow. "What is wrong with my lungs?" she wheezed. It was nearly unintelligible, the weary voice and the aphasia slurring the words together. "I can't breathe . . ."

"The Doctor thinks you have pneumonia," he said, trying to deny the sting of his eyes as he regarded her. Jaundiced eyes, dark circles under them, unbrushed hair from the night before, sunken cheeks. So ill. Dying.

Still beautiful.

She sighed, or rather wheezed. There was fluid in her lungs, which was why she couldn't breathe. She'd suffocate, if the toxicity in her blood was kept down in order to keep _that_ from killing her. The Doctor said she also had the beginnings of acholia. He didn't know what that was, but it didn't sound good. Seven was dying.

And she had _known_.

Whatever threat he might have put to that was _extremely_ tactless at this juncture.

She cleared her throat, looking at him with fathomless blue eyes. "Why what?"

He blinked. "What?"

"You said . . . you asked me 'why.' Why what?"

He looked at her, knowing the pain was in his eyes by the way she almost shied from him. Seven hated to see negative emotion from other people. It was something childlike . . . that she could not stand it herself when any part her family cried. Although, he knew well enough that Seven was no child.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"What . . . that I was dying?" she slurred, frowning at him. "I don't know . . . I just thought that maybe there was a better way to-"

"A better way!? To wait until you had to be hospitalized? Oh, shit, Seven! How can there possibly be a _better_ way to tell me? Any way that I was going to find out was going to be . . . And Kathryn! _This_ is what she was so upset about that day when I . . . why did you tell _her_?"

She made an outright face, which was uncommon for her. It bordered between raging and crying. "It was that or have you asking why I did not! I had to tell her because . . . because it's altogether possible that I will die before . . . she is their mother, as it was probably meant to be in the first place. I don't believe in fate or destiny, but does this not somehow seem ironic to you?" 

His eyes stung. "Ironic?" He barked a mirthless laugh. "Ironic . . . that my wife is dying and my best friend is having our children? No, not ironic."

She cleared her throat again. "Poor word for it, perhaps. Maybe it is for the best," she said, a touch of cold logic creeping into her tone. "I am sure the Captain would make a more . . . natural mother, than I ever could."

He couldn't fight it, and the tears spilled over. Seven was dying, and she was saying maybe it was for the best? "Seven," he breathed. "Don't you dare."

"Dare what?"

"Don't . . . compare yourself . . . to her."

Seven sent him a scathing glance. "Why not? You do."

His mouth fell open. When he realized it had, he shut it, but the expression was out in the void now. He groaned, letting go of her hand so he could sink his face into his own. "Is that . . . what you think? Is that why you're saying all this? Because you think . . . you think that is some point of your death that then I . . ."

"Is that so wrong? Why does it hurt you? It doesn't hurt me. In fact, it seems logical, overused as that word is. You shouldn't let me keep you alone for . . . and what about the babies? Acoya and the female twin? They need two parents-"

"Oh, shut up, Seven. You don't know what you're talking about," he said, aghast. What was she saying? That he should just treat her death as an opening to run straight for Kathryn? That it had no deeper meaning than that she was not present. _She would be gone_. Never again would she even be around to say such indelicate things. She had all the tact of a deck plate sometimes. "Seven, I _love_ you. I love _you_. This isn't about Kathryn or the babies or even me . . . you're _dying_. Doesn't that mean something?"

"Are you sure that you will be rid of me so easily?" she countered, though slightly gentler this time.

"What? Do you plan on coming back to haunt me?" he demanded through his tears.

_Spirits . . . yes, I wish you would._

"If that's what I must do. Chakotay . . . I . . . I'm not trying to say that I think you are or would ever be . . . unfaithful to me but . . ." She drew a breath. "Don't treat it like you'll be betraying me if you stay with the Captain. I hope she realizes that too. I just -I want . . . you to be happy. Both of you. You can adapt."

"Oh, fuck adapting," he grated.

She was unimpressed be his profanity. "Nevertheless, you can and you will."

"Not if I die with you."

_That_ got her. She stared hard at him. "You do not mean that. You . . . had better not mean that. You cannot. We have an alliance, and it is not two party. You cannot waive that."

He blinked. "What did you say?"

"I said we have an alliance."

"That's-"

"The fourth thing I ever said to you? Yes. I use it knowingly."

He grimaced. "You remember that?"

"Of course. I remember everything, even if there were some things I didn't understand, like why you kept the phaser rifle up when I told you to put it down." She paused, coughing. "I remember when I asked where the Captain was, and you looked so worried. I see it was worry now, I didn't then. I remember when you threatened to blow us all out into space . . . and you did, even though I survived. Now I know I was right in a way. We lack harmony, cohesion . . . but not greatness. I saw greatness in you, even though I didn't want to admit that a human individual could be . . . great."

"When . . . how did you arrive at that?" he asked, blinking more tears away.

"We were linked, remember?"

"Yes, of course. I always have. You . . . you were there then."

"I was, and I saw even if I didn't like it then." She smiled softly, even as she coughed a bit. "You were . . . the first person I remember calling me Annika. I remember you, Chakotay. There is no one else I'd rather share my thoughts with."

He choked back a sob. "Me neither. I'm so sorry Seven . . . for all of this."

"Don't apologize to me," she stated firmly. "I am not the victim. All I got out of this was betterment. There is nothing I regret . . . except perhaps hurting the Captain. I must speak with her. I . . . I hated her, sometimes, you know?"

"Yes. So did I. Sometimes."

"No, not like that. I mean I _really_-"

"Wanted to kill her?"

"Yes . . . but in the nicest possible way. She is why you must not even consider 'dying with me.' Our alliance is three way. She to us, you to us and I to both of you. You see that, right?"

Yes he saw, but only the painful part of it . . . until perhaps now. Seven, she had turned it into something supporting . . . that no one feeling was undermining another and there was no conflict. That . . . that he could love them both, as far as she was concerned.

But Seven was dying! His wife, his love . . . everything. How could she think that he would not die with her, even if not in the literal sense. He was dying already. He still wanted the floor to swallow him up.

Seven gestured at the door with a stiff right hand. "Go talk to the Captain. Straighten this out with her. Please. She needs it, I think."

He rose almost unconsciously to do as she wanted. "You always were my better half," he murmured sadly, bringing her other hand to his lips.

She smiled wanly, setting back into the pillow. "I'm not your better half," she replied as he moved towards the door.

She cleared her throat again. "I'm only a third of you . . . though undoubtedly the better of those."

He had to laugh, even through fresh tears.

  
  


_To be continued_

***__

  
  
  
  
  
  



	15. Chapter Fifteen

Disclaimer: They can have the ship, the basic characters and most of the technobabble, but if Paramount ever tried to say they came up with this, I'd beat them. Soundly. (By the way, the song lyrics belong to Lifehouse and whoever owns them)

  
  


_Chapter Fifteen_

  
  


_If shame had a face, I think it would kind of look like me. _

_If it had a home, would it be in my eyes? Would you believe me?   
If I said I am tired of this, now here we go, now one more time, _

_I tried to climb your steps _

_I tried to chase you down _

_I tried to see how low I could get to down to the ground   
I tried to earn my way, _

_I tried to change this mind   
You better believe I tried to beat this   
When will this end? _

_It goes on and on, over and over and over again   
Keep spinning around, I know it wont stop, till I step down from this for good _

_I never thought I'd end up here _

_I never thought I'd be standing where I am _

_I guess I kind of thought it would be easier than this, I guess I was wrong _

_Now one more time, this is a sick cycle carousel, this is a sick cycle, yeah _  
_***_

  
  


He had that strange urge to go beat his head on the wall, maybe it would block this out. Sure, the Captain had been at the hospital . . . but not for her own reason. She hadn't worked up the guts to go speak to them, in at the little room across the hall. Of course, she'd never admit such a weakness, but he saw it. Maybe she thought that if she didn't see, it wouldn't happen. Everyone harboured that childish impulse sometimes.

If one did not see her doing it, maybe Seven would not die.

B'Elanna, once again, was confusing him. Tom wasn't sure if she was angry or sad or hurt or all those . . . she stared at the Captain like she'd turned as blue as a Bolian, flexing her hands into fists and audibly grinding her teeth. As they did sometimes, her facial muscles twitched, drawing her lower eyelids up spasmodically and making her temples jump. That could mean many things. She might be about to demolish the room . . . or maybe just cry.

His wife made no pretense of mistaking her dislike for Seven as complete indifference. She'd be stubborn about it, but she cared, and didn't want to see anything happen to Seven of Nine either. No one did. 

Certainly not him.

He had always liked Seven, in a roundabout way. She had always seemed like she could use a few people in her corner, even if she would refute that to the bitter end. 

The problem was, this_ was_ the bitter end. Very bitter.

"Oh . . . shit," B'Elanna said, actually bumping the side of her head on the doorframe as he would have liked to. "How long does she . . . ?"

"I don't know," the Captain said, sounding slightly hoarse. She looked tired where she sat, the strain showing in how she pinched the bridge of her nose occasionally and squinted her eyes shut. He doubted that she had slept. That was a constant thing. In times of crisis, she wouldn't take care of herself unless told to, and sometimes not even then.

There was really only one person whose opinion had much worth to her, and he was not there.

Very, very tired. He'd never seen her so worn. That was wrong. Some obscure thing that was part hero-worship, part respect for the Captain and part respect for the woman made him think automatically that it was wrong to see her like this. Kathryn Janeway was indestructible, that part of him said. Some part of him felt embarrassed to see her so tired, unkempt and gravid . . . like he was catching her in her underwear or something. This was not a part of her that was meant to be shown, he didn't think.

Conversely, it made him feel that much more . . . fond of her. In that circuitous familial way, like she was a big sister or something. He wanted to hug her, tell her a joke . . . anything to get that look out of her eyes. Where was the Morale Officer when you needed him?

She wrung her hands a little, and then ran one through her unbrushed, auburn hair. "I haven't talked with them . . . or with the Doctor. But I gather not long. I . . . she told me about a week ago that this would happen. I didn't want to believe her."

Oh damn, he had known some hell would come down like this. He'd _known_ it. Why hadn't he said something to Chakotay, the day of that little party? Hell whom it hurt. It was better than this. Anything was.

The end result would be hell on all of them. He had thought that in reference to the babies, not a death he hadn't even dreamed of. And still . . . they were Seven's children -well mostly- and what now? The Captain would be left to take care of them _and_ pick Chakotay up of the floor? For all his apparent endurance in other times, Chakotay had proved surprisingly easy to break. Too vulnerable to what happened to Seven, or the Captain. He knew the feeling. He'd die if anything ever happened to B'Elanna or K'Athra.

Yes, the end result was . . . Hell in the real sense. They were in it.

Seven would likely tell them all to adapt. That was her version of "shut up and suck it up."

"So there's just . . . nothing they can do?" B'Elanna demanded, this time sounding angry.

"No."

His wife swore in Klingon. The few oaths he recognized were decidedly harsh. She slammed a fist on the door with a loud _thud._ Once she had recovered from her little paroxysm, it could be seen that she was crying. B'Elanna wiped furiously at her eyes, growling at nothing and everything. "Oh, why? What did she ever do to . . . shit." She found that she could not stop her tears.

K'Athra, who sat next to the Captain, began to cry also in response to her mother's weeping. Tom could barely contain himself as he watched them.

B'Elanna abruptly launched herself out into the hallway, and straight into a surprised Chakotay, wrapping him in what had to be a crushing embrace and sobbing unabashedly into his shoulder.

She didn't cry. She never cried. 

She _was_ crying.

He swallowed the lump in his throat, but lost it when he saw the Captain -Kathryn- draw his sobbing daughter into her arms, crying herself. He couldn't take it. He looked heavenward with watering eyes, almost a prayer for strength.

B'Elanna managed to peel herself off her long time friend and allow him into the waiting area. Chakotay drew a hand across his face, his eyes unerringly finding the Captain, who was still weeping into K'Athra's dark hair.

K'Athra had since stopped crying herself, but surprisingly did not try to escape the Captain's grasp. She merely looked up with confused eyes, and reached up to touch the Captain's face.

"Cries," K'Athra said, in that cooing baby tone. "'On't cry, Aun Kath."

That just drew another sob out of her, and Tom almost echoed it.

Chakotay drew a long breath where he stood. "I need to talk to you, Kathryn," he said in a low voice. He looked apologetically at B'Elanna. "Do . . . you guys mind?"

"No," B'Elanna said immediately, collecting K'Athra. "C'mon, Tom."

He nodded his assent and followed her out. He didn't want to be in a room with those two at a time like this. Too much emotion, even for him. He refused to think about it. This was no time for speculation. He blinked, and tears ran from the corners of his eyes.

***

She itched to do something, say something that could help. She ached to embrace him, to tell him that it would be all right, even though she knew that wasn't true. She ached in other ways. There was steady pinching feeling at the base of her back, probably from sitting forward for so long. Her eyes stung with lost sleep and tears. She thought maybe her ankles were swelling. One could never be sure.

Chakotay wanted to talk, again. She had had enough of the talking, for once in her life. All talking seemed to serve lately was to bring more bad news. She still wanted a coffee.

She spoke first, belaying him. "B'Elanna's going to have another baby," she stated, smiling wanly for him. No, not all bad news, she supposed.

He blinked in surprise. "Really?" He glanced back towards the door she had left earlier. "Wow. I'm . . . happy for them."

She tried the smile again, but she felt it come out all wrong, a bitter twist of her lips. That was how she felt, after all. Years of careful practice at hiding her emotions seemed for naught right then. __

_Ice cold captains . . . who am I fooling? Certainly not Chakotay. He's been on to me all along._

"Not long now before I give you your own," she murmured. _If twinging muscles mean anything. Why did I do this again? _

Seven. 

"I . . . I hope Seven can . . . I'm sorry. I don't think I can say it," she admitted, frowning down at the somewhat wide expanse of shirt she wore.

"You hope she will hold out long enough to see the babies," he said for her, his tone so subdued she might not have heard him at any other time.

"Yes. That's what I . . . I'm sorry, Chakotay. I should have told you. I'm sorry."

He passed a hand over his eyes and then through his hair. "It wasn't your fault. She didn't want you to, so you didn't. There's nothing wrong with that."

"But maybe if you had known you could have convinced her to-"

"That's why she didn't tell me," he interrupted. "Because I would have tried. She never wants to depend on anyone . . . though I think she may have made an admission awhile ago." He made a face that she couldn't read. Odd. She thought she knew all his expressions.

She felt her brows knit together. "What are we going to do, Chakotay?"

"What?"

"About the babies? Will they live with me, or with you or will we-? I don't know what to do. I wasn't preparing for this. I was going to be a surrogate, I was going to . . . to help Seven take care of them, not take care of them myself. I don't have anything they need. I haven't got a place for- or any- I didn't- What are we going to do? I was going to be Aunt Kathryn again, not Mom."

He shook his head. "I don't know. You _are_ their mother, Kathryn. We'll . . . adapt, I guess."

"If I ever hear that word again I am going to-"

"Don't," he said, hearing her voice rise. "No, Kathryn."

She recoiled slightly. No, Kathryn . . . but with no amusement or smile. It was nothing like all the times before yet . . . that love. God, he loved her. If she'd never known it before, she knew it now. What was he thinking? His wife was in there dying, and her protégée.

She exhaled forcefully, pressing a hand to her aching back. "No . . . I guess not. I still don't know what to do." Unbidden, tears welled in her eyes again. "Goddamn it! This wasn't supposed to happen! Not like this! Damn her! If she had never said that Seven was going to die, would she-"

"Who?" he asked suddenly. "Who said that?"

"The Admiral, damn her. She said that on our way home that Seven would be injured on some godforsaken away mission that I sent her on and by the time we got her back she- She was going to die in your arms, her husband's arms, and you would never . . . Ohhhh, shit. What is this? Wasn't this enough to change that somehow, or was I only delaying the inevitable?"

Chakotay reached a hand out to her, which she clasped gratefully in a vicelike grip, weeping.

"Fate, Kathryn, isn't really something I thought you believed in."

"I _don't_ . . . but-but _hell_ . . . Why couldn't it have changed? I thought I was preventing it, sparing Seven, those twenty-two crew members and . . . and you. You were going to die a broken man, and I couldn't take it. I _can't_ take it. I promised Seven I would stay, but you . . . you have to stay to. Don't die with her. Please?"

He looked taken aback by her outburst, but he didn't release her hand. In fact he returned her grip, his eyes shining with tears. "Do you . . . Is that what you want?"

"Yes, God, _yes_. If you don't, I'll die with both of you. What about the babies? The girl doesn't even have a name for Christ's sake . . . Seven, she has to name her. At least that, even if she. Ah . . . why didn't it change? Was getting home sooner just a stopgap measure? It seems that no matter what I do, it's going to happen . . ."

Chakotay gazed at her with such a gentle look that she nearly fell into more pieces than she already had. "I won't let you turn into the Admiral. I talked with her . . . she was bitter and cynical and everything you're not. I don't care what I have to do, I won't let you to that."

She sobbed. "Chakotay . . . Chakotay, I . . . I love you. Oh God, I love you."

"Do you have any idea," he said roughly. "How long I've-"

She cried out, snatching her hand away from his and pressing them to the small of her back gasping. No longer a dull ache, a sharp pain! Too sharp! 

_Oh, what now . . . Shit, no! Not now! _

__She felt, rather than heard two dull pops and felt the warm, almost hot fluid rush out of her. A spasm rippled through her, and she watched, almost detached, as an echoing movement played along her abdomen, like the twins were kicking. That wasn't it though.

"Ooof," she said, leaning forward. Hardly eloquent, but it suited how she felt.

Chakotay looked like he was going to pass out. "_Now?_" he choked, panicked.

"Ow! Hell yes _now!_ Help me stand up," she commanded, throwing all her well-trained emphasis into the order. He stood stalk still, staring at her like he'd never seen her before this. "Chakotay!"

He jolted into action, helping her stand up. It wasn't that hard, she was mobile but-

"Owwwww!"

"Where's the Doctor?" Chakotay demanded softly, almost like a prayer that the hologram would appear.

"Ah . . . come on, Chakotay. I'm all right. Don't go to pieces on me," she said, reaching up and making him turn his head to look at her instead of the door. "Just walk with me. You don't have to carry me the whole way, or anything. This could take a while and -_shit. _Okay! Maybe not so long!" She felt her knees shake and buckle as every muscle in her abdomen seized. Maybe he would have to carry her.

He looked down at her, his expression nothing short of worshipful. "Kathryn, you-"

"Don't start! This is not the time!" And she meant it. He looked like he wanted to kiss her, and for once her muddled mind determined thatthat was not what she wanted right now. She wanted painkillers and her Doctor. She was not going to do this in the waiting area.

Forcefully, she shrugged him off of her. "I can go faster without you, you big lout. You go tell Seven what's happening. And maybe go stick your head in a puddle. It'll wake you up if nothing else."

"But I-"

"Just go, you idiot. Aw, shiiiiit. Ow. That hurts."

"Kathryn-"

"_Go!_"

  
  


_To be continued_

*** 


	16. Chapter Sixteen

Disclaimer: I doubt Paramount even wants it. (They don't want _any_ fanfics . . . out of the fact that we're showing them up royally, aren't we, people?) 

  
  


_Chapter Sixteen_

  
  


_I feel_

_The link of nature draw me: flesh of flesh,_

_Bone of my bone thou art, and from thy state_

_Mine shall never be parted, bliss or woe_

_--John Milton_

  
  


"Well, what are you doing standing there telling me about it? Go with her."

Chakotay looked mildly affronted from where he leaned halfway into the doorway. Besides that, he looked more than mildly stunned, like he'd just woken up. It amused her to no end, even if she didn't show it. Chakotay's eyes were very expressive, even when he probably didn't want them to be.

"If it isn't one of you telling me what to do, it's both," he grumbled.

She coughed. Her throat burned painfully for a moment. "Go. I'll stay here and think of a name for the female twin."

He made a rueful face at her. "You made it sound so . . . distant. Female twin? Won't you give in a little bit and call her a girl?"

"That is inaccurate. She hasn't even been born. And I am not distant, thank you."

He snorted. "Ah, the vanity that is Seven of Nine."

She almost made a noise of her own, until she coughed again. It felt like something heavy was resting on her chest. Her throat felt raw, like it had when she'd caught a strain of streptococcus. "I am not vain," she objected.

"Oh? Then what are you?"

She paused, considering him with a consciously raised eyebrow. "Conscientious about language."

He nodded as if in complete comprehension, grinning wickedly. "Yep. Vain about how you sound to people."

She looked at her husband with hooded eyes. "Go, before they _are_ born. You can tell me about it later. I am not going anywhere, and from the absence of sound in the hall, the Captain has _gone_ while you hung in my doorway flirting."

Chakotay stood a little straighter, turning and looking with astonishment at the corridor behind him. "Damn. She did."

"Tempus fugit," she stated sagely.

"What?"

"Latin. Time is fleeting. Go."

"How do you know Latin?"

"Must you ask?"

"All right! Don't make faces at me! I'm going."

And he was gone, and she wondered if she'd really done right telling him to go. She flitted between bouts of hating crowds and hating to be alone. Right now, she was sure if she should enjoy her solitude or feel isolated by it. She settled on not thinking about it.

Seven of Nine was not good with names -not in that she couldn't remember them, in fact she remembered every name she'd ever heard- but she had no idea about how to go about naming a _person_, let alone her own daughter. She'd given up her own, and was now called by a number. It suited her well enough, but she could not go designating _children._ One and two. Twins A and B on the scans before they could readily be differentiated from each other.

One was named Acoya. She liked that because she couldn't put another face to the name. It was unique in her mind, and that was something good. What about the female -the girl? All the names Seven knew belonged to other people. And the Captain wanted _her_ to name the infant. What was that, some sort of vague contrition over the fact that she was dying and would have little else to do with the babies except for stories and a gene pool?

Seven felt an unwelcome lump in her inflamed throat. She would not cry. Today was a good day. Her children were being born. _Hers_. She'd never been able to put a claim on anything so permanent. Even her marriage, albeit that it was happy, did not compare somehow. Was it always like this for people, or were eighteen years of sharing everything and owning nothing contributing somehow?

She was glad the Borg had gone back to the Delta Quadrant. She hoped they'd gone all the way back to Planet 0001 and would never leave it again. They had left their indelible mark on her, and she hated them for it so much that the depth of the feeling surprised her.

Once, she had wanted to go back. That was unimaginable.

Of course, once, Chakotay had been ready and willing to space her through an airlock if she'd given him an excuse . . . and lose no sleep over it. He hadn't balked about the fifteen others. Neither did she, for that matter.

Names. Designations. Seven had to think of something unique. She didn't have the imagination for names. She could imagine her way through endless reams of scientific theory, through many scenarios, even through fictional stories . . . but names were beyond her. Seven hadn't said it, but that was part of the reason she kept her language so literal. She didn't have the creativity for colloquialisms.

Name. How could she name another _person_? It seemed like an intrusion on her daughter's individuality somehow, and that bothered her for obvious reasons. She could not go classifying her own child, yet they expected her to? It was very complicated.

She coughed violently, an unbidden groan rising from her lips. It hurt so much.

***

  
  


She was going to break his hand, he was sure. She wasn't even too far into labour yet, but the painkillers had not yet taken effect and the fevered, wild look in her eyes was somewhat frightening. She looked like she wanted to commit some constructive murder. Probably on the part of the thin anaesthetist, whose ministrations had as yet done nothing to help her.

He'd foolishly offered her his hand, hoping to soothe her. Well, it was as much to reassure himself as it was to calm her. He'd never been so frightened in his life, and that was saying a lot.

"Oooo_ooooh!_ Why did I talk myself into this?" she demanded hoarsely, never releasing her crushing grip on his fingers.

Chakotay shook his head, at a complete loss. "I have no idea."

"Well you should!" Kathryn growled, letting her head fall back onto the pillow as the contraction subsided. "Damn. Wasn't there anything _in_ those hyposprays you put in my spine?" she grated, rolling her eyes toward the Starfleet anaesthetist who was careful packing up his drugs into a small kit.

She was in fine command form, glaring fit to kill and with enough Starfleet pomposity in her voice to rival any admiral, even if she did sound a little desperate. What detracted from it was that she was lying almost prostrate as the obstetrician at the end of the bed scanned away, and that her hair was unkempt, sticking to her and that her face was flushed. Despite that he found her beautiful. What was truly alarming was the fact that her previously round abdomen was somehow being compressed into an oblong shape. It looked highly uncomfortable, and he knew it was beyond any man to comprehend what she was truly hollering about. 

"Where's my EMH?" she asked through clenched teeth.

The tall obstetrician who had merely identified herself as Doctor Crawford made a noncommital gesture, looking with interest from her tricorder to the area which was in such question for the moment. He cringed inwardly at the thought, and was glad he was standing by Kathryn's side instead of . . . It all looked painful enough already. Why _had_ she talked herself into it?

"He must be occupied," the Ob replied without interest. "I'm sure he has been called."

"_Make_ sure! Owwww! Oh, damn." She grimaced painfully. "Those drugs are just not coming around." She edged up onto her elbows, fixing the imperturbable doctor with the evil eye. "I don't know about you, but I'm about ready to get on with this."

"Not yet," Dr. Crawford said calmly. "You aren't fully dilated."

"You try saying that from _this_ end of the bed!"

"I have. I have five children. Be calm, Captain Janeway, you are progressing nicely."

Surprisingly, that shut Kathryn up, at least for the moment. Apparently five was somewhat of an overwhelming number at this point in time. She lay back with a groan, still crushing Chakotay's hand. There was such strength in those small hands! He had to wonder at it, even though he was sure he had fractures. 

"Hell with nicely," she grumbled, settling back into the pillows that propped her up. She ran her free hand across her sweat-beaded forehead. "Ugh. I'm such a complainer. I've been though worse."

He was dubious. "Really?" Maybe worse things in terms of danger or fright, but of pain? The thought of it made him cringe, alternately glad that men were not biologically responsible for childbirth and sorry that women were.

Childbirth. The birth of _his_ children. _Theirs_.

It was pure wonder, but his hand was killing him. He winced.

She looked at him, and then at their clasped hands. "Am I hurting you?" she asked, looking genuinely sorry. "Here I'll -Ohhhh, owwwww!" She had been about to let go, but now clenched his fingers even tighter. The bones of his hand ground together. Involuntarily, he moaned with her.

"Don't push!" Dr. Crawford commanded. "You're not ready yet."

"I . . . _feel_ . . . _ready_ . . . _dammit!_"

Chakotay ground his teeth and groaned. He didn't think he could take it, and it wasn't even him doing the work. The anticipation was going to kill him. Suddenly, Kathryn's grip relaxed.

"Oh, wow, there's the drugs. Ooof. Took long enough."

He gently removed his hand for hers, moving the digits painfully. It felt like he'd slammed it in a door -about five times. When had she gotten so strong? Desperation, he surmised. "Happy for you," he said, wincing. "But I'm beginning to wonder if you're the one who needs them."

"You poltroon," she sniffed imperiously. "I always knew you weren't as tough as you let on."

"I never counted on you having my children," he said a bit sourly, shaking the injured hand slightly. 

"Oh, so that's objectionable?" she demanded tartly.

"No, but I wasn't counting crushed hands as part of it."

"Your devotion is overwhelming," she muttered sourly, wincing as another contraction rippled through her. This time, she didn't react so violently. Those painkillers must have been working quite well.

"So's your grip," he replied.

Dr. Crawford was sterilizing her hands. "All right. Break it up, time to go now."

"Oh so _now_ it's time," Kathryn grunted, rising up slightly. She grimaced eloquently as the doctor lifted her legs into what seemed to him to be almost stirrups. There was a sheet draped across her thighs, which he was glad for.

Kathryn exhaled through her teeth as Dr. Crawford pulled up a stool. "Stop poking me. Ah! Especially there! I'm not that numb. Isn't there a better way to do this? It's the twenty-fourth century, for God's sake. Where's the Doctor?"

Dr. Crawford didn't look up. "I am a perfectly capable obstetrician."

"I'm sure you are. I wasn't saying you weren't, but I -Oh!" She reached for Chakotay's hand again, though this time she didn't crush it. Kathryn ground her teeth. Her expression was so tense that he wondered briefly if something was wrong.

"Good. Push, Captain," the Ob commanded, taking control of things.

***

  
  


The Doctor didn't know where to go first, the maternity ward or what passed for intensive care. He opted on completing Seven's checkup first, since the Captain could do fine without him. He had a strange inkling that she was probably berating everyone in the room, judging by the frequent pages to his comm badge. He smiled grimly. Kathryn Janeway was a terrible patient and she was probably abusing the Ob staff without giving any impunity. The thought was not objectionable to him. The doctors in that ward were terribly pretentious -and it took a lot of snobbery to make him notice it through his own- and they could use a little cutting down.

He keyed in the proper code for the door, and immediately heard the most hideous noise.

***

  
  


She couldn't breathe. Seven tried to gasp air into her lungs as the pressure in her chest suddenly constricted like a vice. She was conscious of the noise she was making, and knew it for what it was, agonal breathing -the prelude to what she had known would happen.

_No, not now. Not now! I can't . . ._

There was someone in the room, hitting a large control on the panel on the wall above the bed and calling in a loud voice for assistance. The Doctor! The pain tightened. She hated it, she wished for unconsciousness, but the very nature of her cortical array would not allow it. Seven was conscious of everything. The array would allow sleep, fevered coma, coma due to head trauma . . . but it would not allow her to give in to pain.

"Seven! Seven, can you hear me!"

_Yes!_, she tried to gasp, but all that came out was a terrible nonsense syllable that she was ashamed to have uttered. Yes, Chakotay had been right. She was vain about how she sounded. She looked at the doctor's face with alert eyes, hoping to answer him that way. He seemed to understand.

It felt like someone or something was kicking her in the chest, an awful, jolting pain. They were shocking her heart. Her heart? What did that matter? She couldn't breathe. She wanted to be unconscious, but the Borg part of her brain would not let her.

"Seven! Stay with us come on!"

_I am, can't you see? I am awake._

__She lifted a hand, and the Doctor immediately grasped it, even as he rattled of orders to the others who had entered the room. The poor Doctor. He shouldn't have to see this, it would only hurt him. She perceived that the hologram could be hurt, and not only on the basis of programming. Why hadn't she noticed that before? 

"Seven, your heart is failing. Your cardiopulmonary mechanisms have shut down, and the reinforcements have collapsed. Your heart can't support you on its own. Do you understand?"

She gasped something, and the Doctor leaned closer to hear.

"Tempus . . . fugit," she rasped, her eyes wide and totally aware.

And the Doctor understood her.

  
  


_To be continued_

_***_


	17. Chapter Seventeen

Disclaimer: I don't own it, but I own my brain _and_ my computer. So there.

  
  


_Chapter Seventeen_

  
  


_Wheresoever thou art our agony will find Thee_

_Enthroned on the darkest altar of out heartbreak_

_Perfect. Beast, brute, bastard. O dog my god!_

_--George Barker_

  
  


Dr. Crawford turned to the nurse behind her. "Mark that. Both twins successfully transported at 1434."

She had always known her smallness was a curse. The doctor had eventually given up and ordered a fetal transport, since she was never going to deliver both babies naturally. Not that Kathryn objected to the niceties of having her labour cut short. The painkillers still worked, but she could feel how tense her muscles were. That was going to hurt tomorrow.

She got one good look at the babies and began to cry unabashedly. They were Chakotay's children, no doubt. Both already had a crop of dark hair on the crown of their heads. Her mother would never believe that a Janeway could give birth to such a dark pair of babies. She hoped there was something of Seven in them, maybe something they'd grow into. She couldn't believe how small they were -those were the feet and fists that had caused her so much aggravation?

Chakotay also took a long look at his children from across the room, but somehow couldn't seem to convince himself to move. He looked at them for a long moment, listening to them scream about the very indignity of being born and then looked down at her. He . . . he looked at her as if he'd never seen her before.

"Kathryn . . ." he began, sort of choking on it. He couldn't seem to get anything else out.

She waved a dismissing hand at him. "Oh, I know. Never mind. Don't turn to mush on me." Throughout that admonition, she wept. "We have to take them to Seven as soon as they're able. She has to see them. Now. There isn't that much time to dawdle around."

"Aren't you tired?" he managed.

"Tired? God, no. I'm fine."

He sank into the chair that was beside the bed. "Well I am," he said, running a hand through his hair. "How can't you be tired? You've been up since I called you at . . . what? It was four in the morning?"

"Maybe. Who cares? I'll take energy if I've got it. Oh, wow. Coffee," she stated, realizing that point. "Chakotay, could you go get me a coffee?"

He eyed her warily. "Not with that many drugs in your system. Besides, I think that nurse has something else to give to you."

She frowned at him. In point of fact, she did feel a little giddy. Who wouldn't? This was some sort of day. Abruptly she crashed back down to Earth when a nurse gently deposited the unnamed baby girl into her arms. Kathryn hiccuped, trying not to bawl outright. She was beautiful, that little nameless child. She at least wasn't crying any more and looked sleepily upwards with blue-gray eyes. Kathryn wondered if they would be brown, like Chakotay's, when she was older.

"Oh . . . what are we going to name her?" she asked in wonder, fumbling at the buttons on the front of her shirt. She had to nurse them, she felt positively heavy with it. Damn hormones, screwing with her mammary glands. Every soft sound the baby made seemed bound to get her shirt soaked. Thankfully, her bra had a clasp at the front.

Chakotay didn't seem to know what to do with his eyes. "Seven said she was going to think about a name for her."

"Let's hope she came up with something. Ah!"

"What?"

"Nothing . . . I'm just glad babies aren't born with teeth." The baby girl didn't seem so much tired as ravenously hungry. Conversely, it calmed her mother. Everything was fine now. Nothing was going wrong and everyone involved seemed happy. Except for Acoya, he didn't seem to like being left out. His wailing didn't seem to bother his sister in the least, even as he was placed next to her. They were so small, she could hold them both at once with no trouble. Why were they so small? They weren't all that premature, only a week. _She'd_ certainly been big.

On that thought she looked down, lifting a foot. Uncontrollably, she giggled. _Was that me?_ "Oh, wow, I can see my feet again. Next, I'll be able to wear shoes that have laces without getting help."

"That's provided you aren't sore as hell," Chakotay murmured, finally seemed to have decided that it was all right to look at her, since she was only nursing the babies.

She made a face, feeling the tensity in her muscles. "Shut up. Don't rain on my parade."

He frowned at her quizzically. "What was in those hyposprays?"

"I don't know, but I don't think that's all of my good mood."

"Must be some of it. If I didn't know better, I could swear you were drunk."

"Three hyposprays to the wind," she stated, grinning. "No, that's not it. Come on, Chakotay. We have children! Stop looking so depressed. It's wonderful."

"It is, but I remember why we were here in the first place."

Her eyes stung a little. "What, you think I forgot? Why do you think I'm in such a rush to take these babies down there? Because the painkillers have gone to my head? And that's not even it! Starfleet doesn't use narcotic drugs, especially on women giving birth. Can't I just be in a good mood for once?"

He looked slightly contrite at least. "Well, you aren't anymore. Sorry."

"Don't be . . . it's not your fault. Just stop being such a doomsayer. And don't you dare be anything but elated when we get down there. Seven's depressed enough, she doesn't need your bad mood on her head too. She hates it when she thinks she's upset you. It's a strange guilt thing of hers."

He nodded. "I know, and it makes me feel guilty right back."

"Poor Chakotay. How did you get stuck with us, hmm?"

He shrugged. "It was a combination of the Caretaker, a field commission, seven's lessons with the Doctor and a whole lot of sleepless nights."

She made a face at him. "Commander, I should think you were hinting at something."

He snorted. "Who said I was hinting? It was obvious, if you ask me. It was obvious if you ask anyone. Did you know that your standard bulkheads between quarters are only about half a metre thick? That's a fact that weighed heavily on me for a long time."

Her eyebrows climbed. "Is that an admission?"

"Since when do I have to admit anything? You know the story by now, I hope."

"Well, not all of it, but we've got plenty of time. It's not a crime, you know."

He looked at her seriously. "What isn't?"

"To love both of us."

"That's awfully presumptuous of you," he stated calmly.

"Yes, it is, but I presume correctly, don't I? And I can afford to be presumptuous. I outrank you."

"We aren't on the ship, Kathryn."

She snorted, looking down at the children. _Their_ children. "No, but didn't you know that mothers automatically outrank fathers? Seven and I will show no mercy, you know. Now you hold them while I straighten myself out, and we'll go down there."

"Yes, ma'am."

***

  
  


"Someone else call it. I can't do it," the Doctor said, his voice deadly quiet.

Seven had been in great pain, he could tell. Some part of her cortical array just would not let her succumb to pain, and so she had stared at him with wide, alert eyes, gasping air into her lungs, but to no avail, because her heart had given up on working.

And he'd caused her more pain by shocking her heart and injecting enough stimulant medication to almost have her seizing. She held his hand with the good left one, her near-useless right hand clutched in a stiff, spasmodic fist as she fought with her rebelling body. She had always had such control over herself, what had happened to that?

He had seen some sort of guilty look in her wide eyes, as if she was apologising for causing such trouble. He'd have put up with any kind of trouble if it would have made her healthy again. But to do that, one would have to rebuild her almost completely, and that smacked of the Borg. He hated the Borg with a passion that he didn't know was in him. They had done this to her. They had damned her to an early grave.

At least now she seemed peaceful, like she was no longer fighting with anything.

The Doctor wished for a moment that he was human . . . so that he could feel something other than artificial anger and pain. He knew it was artificial, he could almost hear himself accessing behaviour protocols. How did it feel just to _feel_? Without a second thought, just being subject to an emotion rather than an algorithm that told him he should feel terrible about everything. 

The only reason he couldn't call it was that his behaviour protocol thought that was something he should feel and say.

But was that it? He didn't think so. There was no behaviour subroutine that was specifically programmed to deal with this, so he supposed he was improvising. It didn't feel like it, despite that. Artificial as the thought was, he wanted to go decompile himself.

He loved her, and for a moment she had seemed to see that. That there was something beyond algorithms. She had never seen that before, he didn't think. She'd never given any indication of thinking of him as more than a walking database, albeit one that was her friend. "Tempus fugit," she had said. Time is fleeting . . . oddly appropriate, considering.

And then he had kissed her forehead.

She had smiled slightly, and died very quietly, but for the raucous alarms of the various monitors trained on her. She would never see her children, and they were what she had died for. Fate was so terribly cruel to her, and why was that? What had she ever done to deserve such trouble? But somehow . . . somehow she had been happy. He didn't understand, he was only an interesting piece of technology.

"I said call it," he snapped at the nurse at the foot of the bed.

Seven looked like she was sleeping, but she was so pale, even through the yellow cast of jaundice. She was so beautiful, and she had neither known nor cared about it that he could discern. Did Chakotay know better?

It had been some time since her death, and no one had called it, as if he passage had gone unnoticed. That pained him. She was too remarkable not to be noticed. And then it came, the final words of the medical profession. A cap to everything.

"Time of death: 1435."

And he'd wanted them to call it, yet he didn't. It was so final. She couldn't be gone. Not dead. Not Seven . . . not her beautiful mind, her carefully reined-in imagination. Not the woman he had taught to interact with humans. No, certainly not her. Someone else.

And yet, Seven of Nine was dead, having never seen her children.

Where was Chakotay? He should have been here with her . . . No, he was with the captain, who was giving birth. Wasn't it an impossible circle? Where should the Commander be, with his dying wife or with the woman who was giving birth to his children and whom he had loved so obviously for years? Impossible thing. 

Wasn't that the truth of it? This was not something that could be pulled apart and justified, it just _was_.

But where was Chakotay. He wasn't going to page him for this. That was too cruel, even if he was jealous and angry that the Commander was not there in the first place. Now, had Seven known that at all? Probably not, she ignored things when it suited her.

He found that, as he held her lifeless hand, he could not bear to think of her in the past tense.

  
  


_To be continued_

_***_

  
  



	18. Chapter Eighteen

Disclaimer: C'est ma histoire, mais ce n'est pas tout mon idée. Je n'ai pas d'argent. 

  
  


_Chapter Eighteen_

  
  


It was a sound that was going to be with her for a long time, she knew. It was odd what could imprint itself on a person, but this was not. Her natural, wary aversion to outright sentiment had packed its bags and left. She didn't give a shit about courage or strength in herself when the two most courageous and strong people she knew seemed to have lost their own rigid control. Who was she to intrude on this by being Klingon?

What a sound. Chakotay could not even bring himself to go into the room, he had just collapsed on his knees right there in the hall. She had never known he could make such a terrible sound, it tore at her much more than anything she ad ever experienced before. Her friend, the tough, principled, Maquis Captain, the Starfleet Commander, fell to his knees and wept like a brokenhearted child.

The Captain's reaction had not been much better. She sat stiffly in her chair, holding her children -their children- in both arms. For a moment B'Elanna had worried that she'd drop them, but she didn't. Instead she glared at the Doctor with full eyes, forgetting that it was bad form to shoot the messenger. And then she had cried, all vestiges of captainly composure suddenly and finally gone. Captain Kathryn Janeway's formidable personal armour had suffered its final crack, and left only a crushed woman in its wake.

They had been coming down to show Seven her babies, and she had gone and died.

Wasn't that the way of it? Whenever you finally needed her, Seven was off somewhere else. At least now she hoped that Seven was somewhere else, somewhere where Chakotay could meet her again, someday. B'Elanna admitted to herself that it was not all about the others. She hadn't liked Seven much, but didn't the difficult patients have to stick together?

In the waiting area, she had given in to a fit of anguished temper, grabbing the first thing she saw and hurling it across the room. She rarely did that. B'Elanna like to think she had more control over her more violent side, but the ruin of the chair she had thrown was a testament to the fact that even grieving _half-_Klingons felt the need to demolish things. She was somewhat sorry that there was no one actually responsible for Seven's death. There was no one to kill, to make hurt as she saw Chakotay hurting.

Kahless . . . she wanted to go blast some good sized chunks out of the Borg for what they had done to her best friend's wife. She wanted to go blast something, _anything_ to get this all-consuming rage out of her system. B'Elanna found that she was terribly angry at Seven for leaving them like she had. Didn't Chakotay and the Captain deserve more consideration?

But it wasn't _Seven's_ fault. Hell, none of it was, except that she had sort of usurped the Captain's unspoken but universally understood claim on Chakotay. Damn her, what a mess she'd made of things. It could have been so perfect.

B'Elanna found herself studying the newborn twins with stinging eyes. She let out a short, rueful laugh. Those were Chakotay's progeny, without a doubt, even though they had only recently been born. Their dark-haired, almond-eyed looks stood in stark contrast to the paleness of their red-haired mother, whose face was damp and blotchy with crying. Despite the fact that the moment was far beyond agreeable, the scene was somehow correct. Somehow she'd always imagined that Kathryn Janeway would end up with such dark-haired children.

The Lieutenant was torn between crying again and lambasting anyone and anything with a long line of expletives that rose to her mind. Instead she clamped down on herself and held onto Tom and K'Athra for dear life. Her daughter didn't understand what was going on, and merely looked with wide-eyed alarm at the adults she found herself in the company of. Tom was more of a wreck than she, crying without fear of ridicule. She had always known that Tom had somewhat particular feelings for each person involved, and had never shared her antagonism for Seven in any way.

Seven had been a mother for one full minute. Oh, hell, fate was playing tricks like that all the time, wasn't it? And the ex-drone hadn't even known it. But there it was, on birth and death records, 1434 and 1435. One minute. Goddamn it all. 

_There, you unbelievable bitch! Are you happy?! You screwed it all up like I always knew you would, and it started with the warp core on upwards . . . until you had everyone's complete confidence, even love, and you could break us all in one fell swoop! And you did, didn't you?! Look at them! I hope you can see them, because they're dying for you. And did you deserve it? Goddamn you, yes, because you just made yourself that way! Only you could do this to them_, _and now you have. Damn it, why did you have to start this? I never even liked you . . . and now, now I'm crying for you?_

***

  
  


B'Elanna's face was screwed up into an intense expression of pain and utter loathing for the situation. She was going to put fingerprints in his arm, she was gripping it so hard, as if she was afraid that he'd let go and leave her. Tom didn't have any inclination to do that. He didn't think he could bear to stand alone

Chakotay was alone in more ways than one, even now he was forcibly separating himself from them, even from the Captain who sobbed just as hard as he. Tom bit his tongue. This had better be just for the moment, because if Chakotay left the Captain as alone as he was making himself . . . he'd kill him. He really would, without compunction.

Tom had not grown up in the sort of environment where men had allowed themselves to cry. His father never had, and so neither had Tom when he was old enough to notice -more for fear of his father's censure than of appearing weak to anyone else. But he discarded that now. Hell with it . . . didn't Seven deserve some recognition? B'Elanna was more composed than he, at least now.

For all its trials, life on Voyager had never been like this for him. Sure, there were deaths and funerals, wakes and space burials -but throughout there had been respites. Parties on the holodeck and elsewhere, a wedding, a birth, a good old-fashioned get-together where friends merely sat and got pleasantly drunk. There was no respite here, not for them. "Home" was a mockery of a word when applied to Earth now. 

Where had their home truly been? Where had he fallen in love with B'Elanna, where had he created holodeck programs for everyone, where had his life begun when his daughter was born? 

Where had Seven come into her own, where had she learned to feel again, where had she learned to cherish her freedom? 

And where had the Captain and her Commander done their seven-year "perfectly platonic professionalism" dance, where had they shared all those unspoken conversations right over everyone's heads? Goddamn, he knew where, and now it was a bloody museum, the old feeling gone with it into dormancy.

With Voyager went the last remnants of what had been the greatest years of his life. He knew B'Elanna felt the same, saw the lost look in Chakotay's eyes, saw the Doctor pining away in his little Starfleet office. Saw the Captain, craning her neck skyward as if to see her beloved ship.

With Voyager had parted Seven, it seemed. 

He had heard the Captain once, repeating sometime the Admiral had said. "Never the same." That was of course pertaining to Chakotay, but what of the deeper part? Nothing was the same. Earth was not as they had left it, and Earth was not what they'd had on Voyager. He knew that. They knew that. They had to.

He cried for all of it, for Seven and her sorry end, for those oblivious babies who would never see the mother who had wanted them so badly, for Voyager and all the dead things that had gone into memory with it. A goddamn museum, a static display. What did anyone know, those people who hailed them as long-lost heros and welcomed them home?

This was not home, it couldn't be. Things like this didn't happen when you were where you belonged. Surely they did not belong at Starfleet Medical, where they had spend the better part of two years. Two years! Two years home, and so much gone.

Seven dead! How was that? She was almost as indestructible as the Captain, cold as ice -a quiet planner, the brains of their little outfit. She was the one who stood over the surgical bed and rattled off Borg techniques for this and that, discovering yet another beneficial use for her own nanoprobes. She was not the one who lay there and died. Not Seven. She wouldn't take that sort of shit from the world. How could she have died?

The first thing he had wondered about Seven was where had she got that personal resolve of hers. Borg drones didn't have a personal anything, yet immediately he had recognized that she would never take any bullshit off of anyone for any reason. But there, at 1435, fate or destiny or God even, had bullshitted her royally, and she had succumbed. Unthinkable.

If there was a God, he now had a mortal enemy in the form of Thomas Eugene Paris.

_Now, did you know Seven, that you could do this? You seemed to think in some weird way that even you were irrelevant . . . that no one would really notice if you were there or gone. I'll admit that sometimes I didn't notice that you were there, but it's damn hard not to notice that you're not around to tell us that our tears are pointless and dehydrating to boot, and that we should get on with it and adapt . . . but not in so many words. What's left of us now, the senior crew? Hell, you weren't official, but you've broken us up now. Oh, God, I have to tell Harry. Someone does. Harry's going to fall to pieces, did you know that? Ha, you had half the unmarried quadrant trailing after you, even if you didn't care, and probably some of the married group. And you never cared. Did you care in the end? We do and did. You left a hell of a mess Seven, I only hope we're up to it. Here I am, convincing myself that I can adapt. Irony._

***

  
  


Where had he been? What was he doing while she died there alone but for the Doctor's presence and a plethora of nameless hospital staff? He didn't care what the Doctor had said, he knew Seven had died in pain, awake and alert to everything. How had she felt that he was not there with her, instead of mentally betraying her as he stood next to Kathryn's bedside? How could Kathryn do that to him? For a second, she had driven Seven from his mind, and it was his fault.

It was his fault! Every family he'd ever had died in one way or another, or met some terrible fate. Why couldn't he keep anyone? Why did they die or push him away at the last moment? He did not deserve these people, any of them, not Seven or B'Elanna and certainly not Kathryn -who at the drop of a hat was ready to pick up all the pieces he left in his wake. She looked at him now with dead eyes, eyes he was sure she had seen on him long ago. Her spirit was gone, Kathryn, as she had said, had somehow died along with Seven just as he did.

Seven, the eternal schism. Hadn't they always fought about her? It had usually been Kathryn trying to swing him into her corner, to tolerate, to allow. And he had, for love of the arguer rather than the subject. Then it had turned, and he'd found that Kathryn had done her work well, that he was fully behind Seven in anything she did or wanted. Strange allies, he and Kathryn -all at once she was pushing him away and drawing him closer with every stray glance.

And hadn't that always been it?

Even in death, Seven somehow stood with them, between them, on the sidelines. Seven, his wife and his love, Kathryn's protégée and somehow a daughter figure to her. Always there, watching, observing and knowing goddamn everything. He hadn't had to be physically or even verbally unfaithful, yet hadn't Seven _known_?

Even yet he could not abide Kathryn's pain as she stared at him where he sat brokenly on the floor. And she had told him she loved him. _She_ loved_ him?_ She _loved_ him. That was so impossible. How could she, after seeing what he did to people? Knowing that Seven would always be there? He had to shake his head. What had ever happened to the Captain, the one who defined parameters?

He had children. Seven's children, the ones she had ultimately died for. She was supposed to name the girl, and she had died before she could. One minute! One godforsaken minute, and she had never known. He hoped she did now. But now, for that, they were Kathryn's children, because of course, she was quite ready to do anything that she saw as beneficial for her crew.

Goddamn Kathryn Janeway! You couldn't love her without hating her all at once, she didn't let you.

_I'm so sorry, Seven. I should never have dragged you into this with me. I should never have let Kathryn drag you in. You didn't deserve to have to put up with us, and yet you did without question. What was wrong with you? How could you marry someone you knew was always thinking of someone else? How could I have let you, knowing that I would? But I did, and you called yourself happy. Did you ever know any better? I hope you did, because I was the last person who deserved you. To the end, the last word you spoke even, you were telling me to go. Talk to the Captain, stay with the Captain, the Captain needs you. Were you insane? You not only knew, you encouraged! You never knew what it was like to see that you were first and foremost in someone's mind, and Spirits, but you deserved it. I could never do that, because of the sorry man I am, and yet you decided that you loved me? And now you're dead, and probably still wondering why I'm not comforting the Captain like some part of me wants to. I left you so alone, why did you stay? Why did you go? Why did you die, now of all times? Spirits Seven, I love you. You never knew selfishness, and you had every right to it._ _Who but you, can claim that_?

  
  


_To be continued_

***


	19. Chapter Nineteen

__Disclaimer: Not mine. Eeesh, already. The song doesn't belong to me either.

  
  


_Chapter Nineteen_

  
  


_The Space Between  
The tears we cry_

_Is the laughter keeps us coming back for more  
The Space Between  
The wicked lies we tell  
And hope to keep safe from the pain  
  
But will I hold you again?  
These fickle, fuddled words confuse me  
Like 'Will it rain today?'  
Waste the hours with talking, talking  
These twisted games we're playing  
  
We're strange allies  
With warring hearts  
What wild-eyed beast you be  
The Space Between  
The wicked lies we tell  
And hope to keep safe from the pain_

  
  


She slept the deep, dreamless sleep of the utterly exhausted, one arm resting above her head and the other protectively across the small body that slept with equal peace on her chest -unconsciously looking for the comfort of it, that tiny presence. She had been awoken for the obligatory "three o'clock feeding" though it had been more like two o'clock. Thankfully she didn't have to make the trip twice, since the twins appeared to keep the same schedule.

Kathryn Janeway had fallen asleep on the couch with Acoya still cradled against her. She hadn't had the energy to do anything but turn him upright against her and arrange herself more comfortably. She had given a fleeting thought that it probably wasn't safe to fall asleep with a newborn in such a fashion, but she'd been too drained to lay him in the bassinet next to his sister.

It was sort of a makeshift arrangement. She had neither cradle nor room prepared for them, and had merely crept quietly into Chakotay's solemn house and effectively stolen the necessaries that Seven had accumulated. It had felt odd, very odd, to be in the house where Chakotay and Seven had lived together. She'd visited them there before, but her borderline breaking and entering now smacked of the sacrilegious to her.

She enjoyed her freedom of movement, her coffee, her lace-up shoes and the heady feeling of being completely and absolutely needed -day and night- by two small people she couldn't seem to stop staring at. She had considered motherhood before, but the reality was far different from vague ideas and occasional oohing over tiny clothes. 

Kathryn grieved every day, even as she enjoyed herself.

Every unfocused, myopic look she received from her blue-eyed babies reminded her that they were not entirely _hers_ -that she was usurping the ultimate rights of a dead woman. But she wondered if she could have handled it if Seven had been healthy enough to take care of the children. It was love at first sight, in the purest sense. How had she even _presumed_ to think that she had enough personal strength to hand over two people who had been the focus of nine months of her life, without qualms? What an arrogant thought, to think she was strong enough. It was unworthy of her to be grateful that she didn't have to do that, because it only tied into the fact that Seven of Nine was _dead_. That was the only reason that Kathryn Janeway had children.

They were Chakotay's children too, but she didn't choose to inflict herself on him at a time like this, and so that effectively discounted the babies as well. Chakotay's children. She had given birth to and now cared for _Chakotay's_ children. Some strange part of her gloried in possessing something so very important.

She loved him, she hurt for him, but that didn't matter. Didn't she feel so worthless now that she had said it? Said it on _the day_ that his wife had died. What kind person was she to put that on his shoulders? She'd never speak it again. God, she was an idiot. Could she even bring herself to look him in the eye now? She felt like the worst kind of home wrecker, throwing herself at a man who was about to become a widower. 

_Coward, Kathryn Janeway._

__She woke up, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes. Gently, she splayed her fingers across Acoya's back, feeling his rapid breathing as her slept, oblivious, on her chest. So peaceful. She was glad he didn't know.

The task of naming his small, dark-haired sister had fallen to her. It had not been a hard choice. She would remind herself where these children had come from for the rest of her life, and she would remind them for the rest of theirs. And so, Acoya had a sister named Annika. It fit, somehow.

She tried to keep from sobbing as she looked at her -their- daughter, who slept quietly in the bassinet that she had set beside the couch. If she shook, she would disturb Acoya. Couldn't have that. She woke up like this every day, knowing in her heart that she was not the intended mother of these two remarkable human beings.

_I never let off, did I? I intrude so much. I'm sorry, Seven. I wonder why you didn't hate me the whole time. God, who am I fooling? You probably did._

She turned her head to look at the clock on the wall. Seven o'clock, later than she had expected. Today was the day. The day she dreaded. She had to go see Chakotay. God, what would she say to him now? The mistress showing up at the good wife's funeral. Wasn't it nearly the same, even if it had only been in their minds? She shuddered.

She picked up the battered pieces of her captain's mask and put it on, her tears ceasing, her guilt mercilessly stamped down in favour of What Must Be Done. She had a plan, didn't she? Something to make it a little better? She hoped desperately that it would, and probably vainly. But the idea stuck with her as sure as anything else. Today, she would ask Chakotay what he thought.

Carefully, she moved Acoya, who never stirred as she lay him in beside his sister. His tiny fist was against his mouth, a reflexive attempt at solace. It tore at her, even though she knew it only stemmed for a baby's God-given need to suck on things. Would that comfort was so easy for her -a pair of warm arms to hold her, perhaps coupled with a good meal.

Kathryn chewed on her lower lip, willing herself to forget about it and clean herself up. She took a bath -showers were off-limits because then she couldn't watch the babies. Dressing swiftly, she decided to forgo makeup, because she knew she would be bawling like an idiot before she even got to Chakotay's house. 

"Damn," she cursed. In her haze, she had ripped a long run in her pantyhose. Hell with them anyhow, the dress was long. A black dress. She hated black, and for a day like today, it was nowhere near mournful enough. She needed something darker than black.

She dressed the still-sleeping babies warmly, retrieving a thick wool blanket that she had knitted in hopes of giving it to Seven. Taking the babies anywhere proved troublesome. The bassinet was far too big, and she didn't have much else to work with. But they were small, so she often resorted to carrying them in a strange sort of sling arrangement she had received from B'Elanna, because both babies fit in it so easily. A thoughtful, useful gift from her Chief Engineer. Five blocks . . . that was not far. She grabbed a small stack of padds off her table, just in case she got time to work on them. . . . 

It turned out to be the longest five blocks in her life, even though nothing she carried was heavy. There was painful dread in each step. She didn't think she could bear to see the lost look in Chakotay's eyes that was sure to be there. How could she even go to his house _today_ of all days? Yet, he had called and asked her to do so. How could she refuse him that?

So she walked with dreadful purpose, the Captain's cold, though muddled psyche dragging the rest of Kathryn Janeway along kicking and screaming that she didn't want to do it, that she couldn't do it. The Captain part of her didn't care, and classed it under What Must Be Done. The fallen mistress at the virtuous wife's funeral, children in tow. She shivered.

She began constructing mental barriers. _I will not break down, he needs someone strong, to help him. I will not run away, I promised Seven that I would stay. I will not berate him, he does not need or want the Captain, but I will not break down. I am going to be stubborn as all hell about it. I have to be. But I will not be cold. _She wouldn't. She would. __

_I will not dump my guilt on him, because it is mine._

She knocked cautiously on the door. Disrespect, to be going into _her_ house to see _her_ husband, on this, the day of her funeral. Impious, the devil going into the wake of the saint. Profanation. Chakotay had asked her here. It was What Must Be Done. She though consciously of the padds tucked into the bag she carried. Would that make anything better, would he agree that her plan was good, or would he say that it would only open old wounds? Hell with that defence, the wounds were still open. Would he help? Most of all, would he come with her?

The wretched mistress, on the doorstep of the worthy wife.

The door opened, and she jumped slightly. She looked at the man who stood there. He was not ready to go. He looked haunted. He had just showered, it seemed, in preparation, but was not dressed right. Chakotay wore what he might any day. Not clothes for this day. He looked at her with a furrowed brow, at the barely-awake babies she had with her. He looked at her.

"I . . . I can't do it, Kathryn. I can't go," he said, shaking his head.

She shushed him gently, shaking her head. "Then you don't have to. It's all right, Chakotay."

The padds. The carefully written letter. The plan in her mind. Would he agree?

"Thank you."

"You don't need my permission." _For God's sake, you don't._ "If you don't want to go, then you can stay here. You don't need excuses. Anyone who even wonders doesn't deserve the time of day from you."

He passed a hand over his eyes. Curiously, they did not look as soulless as she had imagined that they would. _I will not break down._ "I just can't stand . . . to see her buried. How can she be dead, Kathryn?" He looked like he wanted to weep, but it appeared he had no tears left.

"I don't know. It doesn't seem real, does it?"

"Kathryn . . . will you stay here, with me?"

_I promised Seven._ "If that's what you want."

Would he agree with what she was trying to do, or would it hurt him? Would he go with her? Would Tom and B'Elanna? Tuvok? Harry? Would they?

He moved aside from the door, allowing her in. Irreverence . . . what was she doing here? This was Seven's house, where she had lived with Chakotay. What was _she_ doing_ here?_ How could he bear it? Wasn't it all just a reminder? Would what she was going to do only remind him?

Seven kept a comfortable house, she though disjointedly, looking about her. She had only been here a few times, long ago. It had changed. She liked it, it seemed like a place that Seven would live, ordered and clean. Aesthetic to a fault. It seemed so empty. Seven belonged here.

"This is nice, Chakotay," she blurted. Idiot, she could have controlled herself.

He gave a small laugh behind her. Laugh? Ye gods, a real genuine laugh. Was he _crazy?_ "What were you expecting?" he murmured. "Blue and green pinstripe?"

Her tongue got away again. "Oh shut up. Don't bring that up, not today." She coloured. _Callous idiot, I told myself that I wouldn't berate him. Now I won't, dammit._

__He didn't look hurt, instead he looked like he understood. He still looked haunted. "I'm sorry," he said. "Careless of me."

Out of pure impulse, she deposited Acoya in his father's arms. Chakotay looked positively confounded for a moment, staring down at the blue-eyed infant who was somehow already his very image but for that. He visibly shook. It occurred to her that he had only held the babies once since their birth.

"Mr. Chakotay," she said, moving closer. "Your children. Acoya and Annika."

Perhaps, there were still tears in him. He smiled though. "You named her."

"I did. Is it all right?"

He let out a breath, looking at her with so much reverence that it pained her. She didn't deserve it, not from him. "All right? It's more than all right. Thank you, Kathryn."

Acoya let out a small wail, echoed by his sister immediately. She grimaced foolishly, feeling her milk let down. She had been in a rush. It was far past time to feed them again. She moved out of the front hall and into the living room. The babies wailed again.

"Shh, you're getting me soaked. Hold on a second," she muttered, fumbling at the buttons in the front of her dress. "I hope you don't mind, Chakotay."

He entered with Acoya, looking ambiguous. "I don't begrudge them their breakfast."

"Good, or they'd never forgive me. There," she said to their baby daughter, who nursed zealously. "Happy now?"

Chakotay watched her, and she found herself blushing slightly. Couldn't he be a gentleman and just ignore the fact that most of her chest was bared? She did blush, very conscious of herself and the fact that her blush wasn't limited to her face.

"Sorry," Chakotay said, taking a clue immediately for once.

"It's all right."

Chakotay in the chair across from her, looking somehow defeated. Acoya fussed, waving helpless fists in the air. Somehow he always knew when he was being left out of a meal.

Despite her rigidly controlled thoughts, she felt the small pickle of familiarity creep into her. She sighed. Not every fantasy of the lonely Starfleet Captain involved . . . sex, now had it? All right, there! She'd admitted to what had driven her to such excesses of coffee and stress at intervals. Not every time though. Sometimes she'd got on that unwanted train of thought . . . that led to outright domesticity. The familiarness of it wracked her to the core, sitting there with him and their children. She had dreamed this, had she not? No, Seven had not figured in.

She sighed again. This was not as it should be. Nothing was.

It would never be the same.

But could she retrieve some of it? For posterity's sake?

She gestured with her chin towards the bag she had brought, to the padds sticking out the side. "Chakotay, if you can reach them, get those padds out. I have something I need to talk with you about. I . . . realize that this is a very bad time but . . . I need my First Officer behind me, hmm?"

A flicker of recognition lit his eyes. He knew business when it was coming, this was no time to sit and lament even if that's what they both wanted. Today was the day of Seven's burial, yet they did not want to see or think of it. This needed to be let out. Seven wouldn't have dawdled around, now would she? He rose carefully, cradling his fidgeting son. He pulled out the first padd.

"This one?" he inquired, looking at her with slight curiosity.

"Yes," she said, a nervous lump forming in her throat. "Read it."

This time he sat beside her, his eyes scanning the padd carefully. His eyes widened with astonishment, and he looked at her with open stupefaction that was uncoloured by his grief for once. She couldn't help but love it. Chakotay as he should be, untroubled if but a little bewildered by something.

He blinked as if trying to clear his eyes. "Is this what I think it is?"

"Yes," she said without hesitation. So far so good. "What do you think?"

He shook his head slightly. "Do you even need to ask?"

  
  


_To be continued_

***


	20. Chapter Twenty

Disclaimer: What do you want me to say? I _am_ infringing and I _did_ intend to do it, so shoot me. Yeah, and that song is a really old Irish one, so nobody owns it personally. (And dangit, it's got the wrong name. Oh well.)

  
  


_Chapter Twenty_

  
  


_I'll take you home again, Kathleen_

_Across the ocean wild and wide_

_To where your heart has ever been_ . . .

  
  


The door buzzed politely. He ignored it, he was busy sorting through a pile of myriad things -reports, requests, demands etc. He was unaccountably glad that Kathryn Janeway had turned down her promotion. She'd waste away doing this sort of thing. The problem was, now she was too self-sufficient. She had proven that she didn't need Starfleet, and probably would again. He was proud of her, even if she was turning into somewhat of a wildcard.

He hoped his son had learned a thing or three thousand from her before she had turned strange. He didn't understand her Voyager crew either, they seemed to be a breed unto themselves. People had gone on deep space missions before -although not that deep- and yet _they_ came back different somehow, those Voyager people. It was different, and the longest maiden voyage ever. And hadn't they made the very best of it? He'd promote all of them, if they'd take it and the rest of his colleagues would agree to it, but sometimes people were stubborn.

Admiral Owen Paris frowned down at the work on his large desk. If he didn't do it now, he'd never get it done, he supposed. The door buzzed again.

He rolled his eyes, hitting the button on his desk so that those in the reception area beyond could hear him, most notably his secretary. Hadn't he said that he was busy today and didn't want to be bothered?

"This had better be good, Evans," he said.

"Captain Janeway here to see you, Admiral sir," the young secretary said diffidently.

Kathryn Janeway hmm? Think of the devil. "All right, send her in."

The door opened presently, admitting the woman in question. He took a moment to look at her. She was in uniform. Wasn't she supposed to be on maternity leave? She sure didn't look like she'd recently had children, but she'd always been a skinny thing. She held a padd in her hand. Damn, more work to be done. She saluted him perfunctorily.

"You didn't think I'd barge right on in even if you didn't tell me I could?" she said in that infuriating way. 

She was often bordering on insubordinate, especially of late, but her manner made it impossible for you to call her down for it. She may have only been a Captain, but she carried herself more like an Admiral than he ever had. Hell, she'd done that when she was just a science officer. She was . . . intimidating, though only mildly so from his perspective. He was protected by more age and greater rank.

"I entertained the thought," he replied. "You never did like doorbells. You're looking well, Kathryn. Here on business?"

She smiled crookedly. There was a dark look about her eyes even with the smile, like she'd been terribly hurt by something. Oh yes. The drone had died. 

"Sort of." 

She flung the padd onto his desk and herself into a chair. Where had this come from? The straightlaced Captain Janeway replaced by a wounded-looking woman who was exhibiting enough ease in his presence to warrant official censure? What had gotten into her?

Wasn't she supposed to be off-duty?

She looked at him with serious blue eyes. "I'm calling in my favours, Admiral."

"Pardon me?"

"You told me the day that I turned down the promotion that your office was still open, I'm taking advantage of that. Mark my words, I won't leave you alone until you pay up."

"You're taking the admiralty?"

"Hardly."

Who was this woman, and what had she done with Janeway?

***

  
  


The comm lines buzzed at Chakotay's house, everyone calling in to hear what the Captain was doing. Endless calls, queries coupled with condolences and congratulations. Out of circumstance, he found himself alone with the babies, a fact which made him nervous. What if they got hungry? He wasn't exactly equipped. The phone beeped incessantly.

It was a good thing that the phone was able to open three lines at once, or he'd never get to talk to anyone. He missed the simpler times when it was easy as tapping your comm badge. Why were they all calling him, anyhow? Couldn't they just circulate whatever rumour they'd picked up amongst themselves? They always had before.

Unaccountably, he was surprised and glad for the number of calls coming in. Had Kathryn known how many people were jumping at the chance to go harass headquarters with her, if need be? He was happy for her. He should have known, though. People who knew her were ridiculously loyal to her. He knew that through personal experience.

And she had even had to ask if he'd go along with it?

Crazy woman, didn't she know better?

_Oh Seven, I wish you were here for this._

***

  
  


B'Elanna was in high dudgeon . . . well, she was in high something. High gear, maybe. She rattled plans off incessantly, never looking so happy to be leaving the place they had called home for almost two years. Tom knew a happy B'Elanna when he saw her, even if she was snapping at him. They were going to San Francisco, once again.

Who cared now, if his father found out where he was? He wouldn't be here for much longer, if the Captain could successfully bully Admiral Paris. And she'd always been a successful bully, why would that change?

Even as B'Elanna harped at him, he grinned like an idiot.

***

  
  


What was he doing there, standing in the middle of the room and grinning like an idiot? Hadn't she told him to get a move on? There was no doubt in her mind that the Captain would succeed, and she was preparing to visit San Francisco. Never had she anticipated the trip with such relish.

K'Athra didn't understand what was going on, but she would in due time, if Captain Janeway had her way. And the Captain would, because it was high time for something to go right and when Janeway told you to do something, you were in fear of your life until you did. Especially if you refused in the first place, then she'd never leave you alone. She knew that quite well herself.

Even through her irritation, B'Elanna felt herself echoing her husband's grin.

***

  
  


As soon as Harry had gotten word -from Jenny Delaney, no less- he had bounded to the nearest city reference to find Chakotay's number. It used to be Seven's number too. He remembered the funeral with sad clarity. The Captain and the Commander had not been there. They'd been planning this, but somehow that was all right.

_Seven, you would want this, wouldn't you?_

Of course she would. That he was sure of. He dialled the correct number, and added to the plethora of calls.

***

  
  


Artificial happiness? It didn't feel like it, and he didn't feel like his protocols were up to anything but sorrow until now. But now, now he'd be out of here, his tiny little office. He couldn't help but think of Seven. She would have been as anticipatory about all this as anyone.

Tempus fugit, she'd said. It certainly did, but never so happily . . . not for such a long time. The Captain had to convince them, she _had _to. If he'd ever been sure of anything, he was sure of this. It was impossible to have aught but complete confidence in a determined Kathryn Janeway.

***

  
  


News travelled very fast in the Federation. The day after receiving word of Seven of Nine's death and the birth notice, Tuvok had received a letter from the Captain that even he couldn't help but be surprised at, muted as the feeling was. It was an admirable thing she was doing, but it more than suggested of spur-of-the-moment Human impulse, a thing he avoided at all costs.

Despite the sentiment, he was not against the idea, not in the least. However, could he depart so easily, when he had only just arrived home? It seemed that it was what she was asking.

Could he refuse a favour to one of his dearest friends?

Logical to a fault, he considered the situation.

***

  
  


"Calling in your favours, hmm? What about the ones you owe me?"

She shrugged, looking like she was open to that. "What did you have in mind?"

The Admiral eyed her suspiciously. Kathryn Janeway was never one to give people blank cheques. She was too shrewd for that. He took the opening anyhow. "How about where my son is?"

"Simple, I'm surprised you didn't find out long ago. He's in Canada, near a town named Bancroft in Ontario, which I believe you're acquainted with rather well." Her lips twisted into a somewhat evil smile. Calculating, machinating woman. She delighted him.

He laughed at his own folly. "I should have known he'd hide somewhere I knew. He's very clever, you know."

She nodded. "Oh yes, I know. But he's pretty artless sometimes, even if he pretends to be so worldly. Just don't give him any trouble, or you'll have B'Elanna to tangle with, and you'll more than have met your match in her. Now on to the more pertinent point?"

She and her wriggling eyebrows. "All right, what is this favour you need from me?"

Grinning conspiratorially, she told him. With great relish.

His mouth hung open for a second as he struggled to take her request in. No, she hadn't requested, she had demanded in no uncertain terms. The nerve of her, honestly! Who was she to come in here and command things?

_She's Kathryn Janeway, is who, with enough accolades and unofficial brass backing her every move that you'll be lucky to get out of this with one pip, old man. And I do owe her. She just told me where Tom is. Calling in her favours indeed._

"Well?" she asked.

"You're insane. She's old."

"Refit her."

"She's been basically derelict for-"

"Move her."

"She's almost ten years old!" he insisted again.

Janeway gazed at him levelly from her seat. "You're not going to sway me."

"They'd give you a new one. They're jumping to do it."

"I don't _want_ a new one."

"You're crazy, Kathryn."

"Re-commission my ship, Owen," she drawled, stressing her use of his name.

He shook his head at her. "What would you do with her? You're too independent. Do you think you can just sit back and take missions from Headquarters without balking? Do you think you can stand to be in charted space? For crissakes, you got spoiled out there, I think."

"The Enterprise did all right. They still do. And I am spoiled. Who cares? I'm going to milk the 'Starfleet's Golden Girl' position for all it's worth. What fun is it, otherwise? You can't stick me at a desk for the rest of my life -I'd kill you first- and I won't take any ship but Voyager."

"Even if they built a new one?" Threats, was it? Somehow, he thought she was serious. Damn, she'd grown some violence in her somewhere along the way. The far off look in her eyes only added to it, like she'd think nothing of carrying out any threat. A lot had happened to her, but how had it changed her so much? She used to be the epitome of what a good Starfleet officer should be . . . and now what? She was acting like she was hacking out a trade agreement. An agreement that she was going to dictate the terms of, by brute force alone if need be.

"Nope. Re-commission my ship, Admiral."

"She's too old."

She glared at him. What a look! Positively violent. God, she'd make a hell of an admiral, just like she made a hell of a captain. "I don't care if you have to refit and upgrade every power conduit on your own credit, you are going to give me my ship back, and any of my crew who want to come . . . and you're not even going to turn a hair while you convince the rest of your medaled and brass-barred cohorts that it's a damned good idea too."

"What about your children?"

"What about them? Don't you turn twentieth on me. You can raise kids on ships."

"What about their father-"

"Owen, their father is my First Officer."

"Oh, so it's all in a nice little package, isn't it?" Her _First Officer_? There was a little piece of information he had missed. What else was he missing?

"It certainly is," she agreed warmly. Now what was that in her tone? "Give me my ship."

He stared down at her, suddenly conscious that he had risen from his chair and was standing with his hands palms-down on his desk. She would stay there forever, he knew. It wasn't as easy as Admiral-to-Captain anymore, even if they were friendly. No amount of resistance from him was going to change her mind. She wanted her ship, and she would probably scream to high heaven to get it. She _was_ spoiled! It was positively childish. Oddly commendable, though.

"I'm not going to budge you, am I?"

The look on her face was answer enough.

"I give up. You win. You go call your cohorts, I'll call mine." He sank back into his chair as she rose from hers, looking smug as hell. She'd known she'd win. That bothered him. That was look was so . . . she'd spent too much time with his son, he could tell.

"You're sure I can't interest you in something from Utopia Planetia? There's a new ship in the yard right now going begging but for a good commanding officer. You could even take your crew with you."

"No. Voyager."

"Okay, but this might take a while. Just don't raise too much hell in the meantime, all right?"

She grinned openly at him, some of the dark look falling away. "How can you ask that? I spent seven years on a ship with your son chattering at me from the conn, Admiral. He taught me a few things about what you should do when you get your way. I feel happy for the first time in a long while, and if there's a meantime, I'll raise hell in it if I want to."

He didn't doubt it.

***

  
  


Kathryn sank down slowly against the wall, her knees too weak to hold her and hot tears streaming from her eyes. She'd done it, everything was going to be fine. All of it. She had Voyager, she had their ship. She didn't care where in space she was, as long as it was on that ship. Home was where the heart was, and she'd left a good-sized piece of hers on Voyager.

She thought about the eerie blacks and greens of Cargo Bay Two. What to do with that? Who would be there now, to make even the alcoves somehow less intimidating? No one, because she had died while they lived on Earth, and pretended it was what they wanted.

Who were they kidding? They were all spoiled by it. Earth was not home, for her at least.

If only it had not taken so long to realize it.

She ignored the strange look she received from the Admiral's secretary and rose . . . off to "call her cohorts." Her family, the only one she wanted. She had to laugh, and laugh like a giddy child. It was all going right now, just for once. She was going to have Voyager back, the thing she had been pining for while she told herself that Earth was what she wanted. Wasn't she just like a spoiled Starfleet brat? Hypocrite.

It seemed that fate had taken a better turn for once, and it hurt that Seven was not there to see it. She would have deserved it. She did deserve it.

_Sorry Seven, I can't keep my promise. I can't stay, but I'm going to drag everyone with me, including Chakotay. Is that enough? It will be like it was, only not the same. Never the same. You left a big hole here, you know, and I have a feeling I'm going to be talking to you in my head like this until the day I die. But you taught me the truth, even though you had to die to do it, because I'm so stubborn. I learned from you, like I hoped I had. Thank you._

And Kathryn Janeway cried as she dialled the number, knowing that things would be better and that she wasn't just improvising in place of happiness. She would stare it all in the face now, instead of hiding and patching things as she went. No more stopgap measures. 

She had learned that if something was going to happen, it would happen, no matter how hard she struggled. Same went, curiously, for the good things as well as the bad.

Kathryn blinked, staring at the message on the phone's screen. The lines were all busy. What the hell? A good phone could handle holding about thirty lines at once and open three. Chakotay's certainly could, it was new . . . and they were busy? All busy.

Despite her irritation, she grinned.

  
  


_The End (?)_

_***_

Well? What do ya think? Gotta love those wide open endings, hmm? Thanks for reading, I never knew so many people would like this, it was just a muddled idea I cooked up because I hated how abruptly they dropped everyone in the AQ. And here I am with my own abrupt ending! Sorry there. Darn, now that I'm done this, what am I going to do with myself. . . ? -M 


End file.
